Tao Jie - Ein einfaches Leben

The Palm Springs Film Festival ended with a day that included the best films of the fest. A Simple Life was on the list and was the icing on the cake of this great festival. This is a film about our connections to those we love, those we hardly know, and to ourselves. It is a sublimely graceful work and truly seamless. Deannie Yip, plays a maid who has worked for a family for many, many years. When she falls ill she moves to a long term care facility. Her struggle to move into her new role as an "ill person" is completely in keeping with what we know about her character. Great acting! The relationships she shares with the family members she's worked for are studies in the nuances of intimacy. Directed by Ann Hui....it's no wonder she's said to be "Asia's most important female director".

Ah Tao, an old maid in Hong Kong who have served Roger's family for four generations suffering stroke that make her deciding to retire and move into old people's place. She recover her stroke there, learns many thing and also is treated well. Every once a week, her master Roger visits her and accompanies her to take a walk. Sometimes, Roger's mom also comes to visit Ah Tao and bring her many useful things. Roger's family really love Ah Tao and feel thankful after what she has done for them about 60 years long by taking care of their family.

'A Simple Life' have shown that a simple story could give good impression and enjoyable to watch. The storyline is not complicated at all, the movie goes on slowly and very detail. Ann Hui as a director tries to make it safe and straight without any meaningful conflicts which sometimes could make audience feels bored watching it. The relationship between Roger and Ah Tao built really well, it shows how they support and take care one another even sometimes telling jokes. Credits should be given to Andy Lau and Deannie Yip, their acting is so natural as two characters who has known each other for a long time. Overall, 'A Simple Life' is a memorable Chinese movie I've seen recently. Actually I felt exhausted during watching 'A Simple Life' because of it's slow plot but when I rewind what I just saw, the movie isn't bad at all and has so much lesson to be learned from it. It teaches audience to respect and appreciate people who has done good things in lives and not forgetting their merit.

I seriously do not know why it took this movie so long to be in the cinemas. It is one of the defining works of the year and essentially a simple movie about simple and unexplored characters of Hong Kong people. Ms Ann Hui is truly at her very best once again. After winning awards for The Way We Were, Hui strikes the cord to the highest potential by casting Andy Lau and former box office queen of 80s Deanie Ip whose chemistry dates back to almost 23 years old in their last corroboration. It is truly a delight to sit through a movie like this and while this being one Hui's most accepted work to the general public; she never strays away from her principles and values. At its core, it is a film about human interactions, feelings, relationships and old age. One day, we will die and old age is a burning topic for the baby boomer's generation.

Deanie Ip puts in a career defining performance and as she puts it, acting as an old lady is not difficult at all, as she is just playing herself. The manner she manages to make the audience enjoy her character the Chinese servant of Hong Kong family for 3 generations is impressive to say the least. Life is never easy and sometimes, we just tend to forget those people who work their life within behind the scene, with heart, soul and pure dedication. These are people who gave up on having a family of their own and instead spend their whole life raising other people's families. Nowadays, the loyalty and the servant and master relationships are a lot more different. As mentioned before, Ip's characters work so well because there is an underlying chemistry between Andy Lau and her. Lau puts in an underrated performance that doesn't allow him to overshadow the main character. It is a compliment that it is because of the understated manner Lau manages to approach his character that allows Deanie Ip's the spotlight and attention.

A Simple Life has already won a lot of awards and not to mention plenty of admiration from a new league of fans young and old. Hui has been around a long time and has never strayed from the commercialism of Hong Kong cinema. To finally witness an Ann Hui film making splash at the box office is really as a good a feeling as watching a fine piece of cinema. In many ways this is a true and realistic look at simple aspects of life, characters and old age. It is this simplistic that makes Hui's films so different, enjoyable and ultimately touching. All in all, A Simple Life is a Hong Kong movie and more importantly a movie that takes us along the ride, respects those around us and allows the audience to reflect upon their own lives. Movies like these only comes along once in a generation and while this may not be Hui's best work, but in terms of balancing the needs of the Hong Kong people and her own vision, it is certainly the most accessible of her works. A fine piece of cinematic experience…

Neo rates it 9/10

• www.thehkneo.com

Ann Hui's "A Simple Life" is a poignant and melancholic film about the relationship between an old servant and her companion, a successful film producer to whose family the servant had been in service with. It is a beautiful, touching, and, more importantly, human film. It lives and breathes its own life with the help of the cast and crew involved.

The performances by Andy Lau as Roger the man and especially Deannie Yip as Ah Tao complement the movie's atmosphere as a whole. It is a warm, homely and crystal-clear one – subtly quiet, slightly louder when there's more people around. This film's screenplay relies more on the look on the actors' faces rather than relying on dialogue. This is a good thing. It allows the audience to focus on the performances in rapt attention. Relying on dialogue/subtitles more than often will distract from the movie. This is one movie which follows my rule for any great movie: subtlety is key. In many dramatic Chinese movies, the piano is a must for every music score, and it is overdone cheesily at many times. For this movie, however, composer Law Wing-Fai knows crucial music timing - the music is not overdone, yet not too minimal, and it knows when to appear at the right time. Correct.

Hui's focused yet calm, serene direction basically drives Susan Chan's screenplay right at home. Hui seems to have learned a thing or two about human drama from greats like Yasujiro Ozu and Akira Kurosawa – it is put into terrific use here. But Yip's performance as the altruistic Ah Tao is simply wonderful; her face and body language speak more than herself, her vocal qualities ranging from sharp balking to solemn calm. She is the heart of the movie, alive, beating and like her, moving quietly along as her life goes by. Lau is also very good here, being more stoic than usual but hiding uneasiness within his eyes.

There is no great story without good characters, and "A Simple Life" has two great characters that drives the movie. Roger is a successful film producer, his whole family has migrated to America, and he's seemingly living the high life with his wealthy friends (featuring many non- intrusive cameos by Chinese celebrities including humorous ones by Sammo Hung, Tsui Hark and Anthony Wong) and yet he is more concerned with Ah Tao than everyone else. Ah Tao is an orphan since World War II and has since been serving Roger's family for four generations without expecting any sort of compensation in return. Roger doesn't mind taking care of Ah Tao as everyone else progresses around him – the same way Ah Tao doesn't mind living her life on her own at an old folks' home without Roger to help her around after a stroke attack – she feels guilty if he did that. The two characters are bonded, play with, even depend on each other as if they're the only two people who understand each other. A sort of mother-son love, but more powerful. Compare with later scenes with Roger and his real mother and you'll see the difference. I'm not implying Roger's real mother is a morally bad character, far from it. The relationship between them is more real and human than I had expected.

Some will call this tedious and pretentious; others will call it pointless. I'm not sure, but I'd love to see movies like this where the characters unwrap the story around them as life progresses with its ups and downs. Sure, there are a few bits and pieces that did not really relate to the main character's story – but they make up the story and the characters as a whole – shaping this narrative up. It is a thing of beauty. So is life. So is this film - one of the year's best.

Overall rating: 88%

Ah Tao has been working for Roger's family for 4 generations and more than sixty years. Everyone but Roger lives now in America, and Ah Tao takes care of Roger as he was still a little child. But then she has a stroke and can't work anymore. Ah Tao, seeing that she's already 70 years old, asks Roger to find her a nursing home. But he decides not to forget about her, and visits her as much as possible.

"A Simple Life" is a very good film, with great acting and a very touching story. It is all a little bit too beautiful (rich guy decides to give his time to old sick maid) as we almost don't see any tension between the characters (except the guy that asks for money constantly and Anthony Wong's shady character). The worst we see is Ah Tao telling Roger to use a tablecloth or checking if there's dust in the flat now that she's not cleaning it. And it goes for the tear once or twice. But everyone, from the writers to director Ann Hui, to the actors, do a great job to make us invest in the story and care about all involved. Andy Lau (from "Infernal Affairs" fame) does a great job as the film producer, going from joyful to subdued to caring, but this is Deannie Yip's show and she is amazing.

The movie also has lots of famous faces from Hong Kong film industry, so a fan can have some fun recognizing Chapman To or Sammo Hung.

The story is simple (it is there in the title) but simple doesn't mean worthless or boring. Simple can be great. Like here.