By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 5 cats
Director: Ann Hui
Starring: Andy Lau | Deannie Ip | Fuli Wang | Hailu Qin
Original language title: Tao jie
Country: hong_kong
Year: 2012
Running time: 118
IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2008006/
Jason says: “A SIMPLE LIFE opens with a screen of text explaining how these characters got to this point in their lives, but is intriguingly silent on why its two main characters are mostly alone except for each other. That’s fine; it means that the focus stays on the relationship between a woman and the man whose family she served for her entire life, and figuring out what it is.
“Chung Chun-Tao (Deannie Yip Tak-Han) was orphaned when just a child, soon entering into service with a well-to-do Hong Kong family. Now, sixty years later, the only one remaining in Hong Kong is Roger (Andy Lau Tak-wah), who works in the movie business and shares a small apartment with ‘Ah Tao’ and her cat Kaka. Just as he’s returning from a business trip to Beijing, Ah Tao has a stroke, immediately retiring and planning to move into an old persons’ home. Roger is not quite ready to part with someone who has been there for his entire life, and Ah Tao may eventually be grateful for that.
“It’s a bit odd typing the word ‘service’ in this context for a picture that takes place in the present day, and ‘master’ was plenty jarring when used in the film; maybe it seems less anachronistic in Hong Kong or in wealthier circles. Even if that’s the case, director Ann Hui, writers Susan Chan Suk-Yin and Lee Yan-lam, and the cast get across what a profoundly strange, inherently asymmetrical relationship this can be. There are plenty of moments where Ah Tao seems to actively fight Roger and his family having any further involvement in her life; this and how she barks at another resident when he says it sounds like she has a servant’s name makes it sounds like she’s ashamed of a life spent subordinate to others. As the movie continues, and the audience sees other members of Roger’s family, we get an impressively even-handed view of how they see each other differently – how well-earned generosity can seem patronizing and other disconnects.
“The audience understands this even though Ah Tao never vocalizes them in anything close to a direct manner – Deannie Yip’s performance is really a tour de force. Some bits of it are mechanical, but almost perfectly so – there’s not a single false note to her as a stroke victim, for instance; the partial paralysis seems entirely authentic, but not so overpowering that it ever blots out Ah Tao’s personality. Yip navigates the contradictory elements that make Ah Tao human and believable perfectly; the familial affection never conflicts with her feeling like an outsider, and it seems perfectly natural for her to be stubborn, self-sacrificing, ashamed that she’s spent her whole life that way and without apparent regret.
“She also has a great rapport with Andy Lau, which is perhaps not surprising – a little digging on IMDB indicates that Yip is in fact Lau’s godmother (the relationship others ascribe to their characters). Wherever the on-screen affection-with-bounds comes from, it’s perfect. That means Lau is doing some fine work as well. Roger is an interesting character in his own right, a fearsome negotiator where business is involved but seeming a bit isolated even when with a group of friends. Lau also does a nice job of not just making Ah Tao a surrogate mother to Roger (or granny, as the movie occasionally seems fuzzy on Roger’s age); as close as they become, that she was once an employee is visible in his attitude as well.
“Hui and company put quite the enjoyable cast around the pair, too. Roger’s job in the movie industry gets us a couple of early, funny cameos by Tsui Hark and Sammo Hung (Lau’s directors on the recent Detective Dee) as themselves, while Chapman To Man-chat and Anthony Wong Chau-sang are among the many actors that Chinese film fans may recognize in small roles. Then there’s Paul Chun Chin-Pei as a fellow resident looking to keep active in his old age, and Amanda Qin Hailu as the businesslike but basically good nurse tasked with keeping the place running.
“The way Hui handles the old folks’ home is one of several quite clever things she does here: When the audience first sees it, the audience will likely feel some revulsion – it’s cluttered, located in a storefront, with a small common area and residents’ rooms that are more like office cubicles. As the movie goes on, it seems more pleasant, with Ah Tao making friends Ms. Choi seeming less severe, Roger regularly visiting… Then, something happens and Hui suddenly goes back to the angles she and cinematographer Nelson Yu Kik-wai had been using earlier and brings the lights that the audience hadn’t even noticed were getting brighter back down, and the audience hopefully realizes that she’d made us buy into what we want these places to be rather than what they actually are, which is a little food for thought that ties into the rest of the movie without overpowering it the way it could have.
“In fact, there are a lot of nice details in the margins of A SIMPLE LIFE that make it even richer than it could be. It would still be a very impressive movie without them; Deannie Yip is reason enough to see this film on her own. That every detail works is a bonus, making the movie a real must-see. 5 cats
“Seen 20 April 2012 in AMC Boston Common #3 (first-run, Sony Digital 4K)”
Michael says: “It seems a modern generation of independent filmmakers are all hitting an age where their minds turn to their elderly parents. AMOUR, STILL, A FEW HOURS OF SPRING, and now A SIMPLE LIFE, all different takes on a subject that each and every one of us will someday face. Ann Hui’s A SIMPLE LIFE is without a doubt the gentlest of this category of films that I’ve seen; the most moving; and in some subtle ways, the most layered. After being taken in as an orphan by the wealthy Leung family, Ah Tao has spent sixty years of her life as their maid, serving four generations of the family. Now she has only one person to care for, Roger, single and in his thirties, a successful film producer, who she enjoys a comfortable yet on the surface, professional relationship with. She is shown as extremely capable and caring, yet when she suffers a stroke and decides to retire, their relationship becomes reversed, and Roger must care for her needs. She insists on being placed in an assisted living home, where Roger, despite his busy schedule grows more and more like the devoted son she never had.
“The film quietly reveals the complexities of the relationship between an employer and his domestic that is often idealized in film. There are hints that Ah Tao may have a certain embarrassment about her life as a maid, yet the love between her and Roger is evident as it becomes clear that she is the person who has been there for him his entire life. Hui shows the way Ah Tao navigates the difficult transition to assisted living beautifully, and the pair’s relationship is revealed gradually and beautifully, aided ably with two outstanding performances. Most known to American audiences for his roles in HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS and INFERNAL AFFAIRS, Lau is remarkable as the jet-setting film producer who is as isolated as he is successful. While he always presents himself with composure, the slight widening of his eyes, or set of his jaw reveal volumes of emotion as the movie unfolds. Renown actress Deannie Yip handles the difficult role of Ah Tao perfectly, conveying both the physical challenges of a stroke victim, and the emotional complexities of her station in an honest and powerful performance that will touch your heart.
“There is a lot to say about A SIMPLE LIFE, so much that the name of the film borders on sarcasm. Just released on DVD in the States, I urge everyone to try to catch this on Netflix, or through the Chlotrudis screening program before voting for the Buried Treasure category. 5 cats”
Diane says: “Uh-oh, I’m having Chlotrudis overload. A SIMPLE LIFE is elegiac in tone, and features great perfs from both leads, yet in my punchy mood I viewed SIMPLE LIFE as an overcooked stew of AMOUR and QUARTET: loving care through illness extended with nursing home stock. Caregiver Roger is too good, too consistently kind. As I suspected, this is the screenwriter’s own story, and boy, does he see himself as an angel.”
Michael responds: “I have to offer a slight disagreement with Diane. I don’t think caregiver Roger is too good. In fact, during their first scene together, before Ah Tao has her stroke, I find Roger to be emotionally distant, and borderline dismissive of Ah Tao’s dutiful preparation of his dinner, and fussing over his life. As the film progresses, we see Roger taking care of Ah Tao, but it seems at first that it’s more out of duty to this woman who has worked for his family for 60 years than true emotional attachment. Yet as the story goes on, and Roger sees how Ah Tao interacts with her fellow residents, and how his high school pals all react to her after not seeing her for years, and then especially when they go through the memories of their lives together, he comes to realize just how much this woman means to him, and just how much of an impact she had on her life. From that point, he motivations change very subtly, and you can see the love between them.
“I don’t know if it’s cultural, but I thought these nuances were extremely subtle, and I actually appreciated that. The relationship between a beloved caretaker, one who is paid to do a job by a wealthy family, and the members of that family is very complex and often looked at in ways that are a bit cliche or melodramatic in most films. In A SIMPLE LIFE I don’t find that to be the case. The changing relationship from employer/employee to a more familial bond is both easy and difficult and very quietly explored.”