Une vie simple

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.

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.

I saw this film as part of the Rotterdam Film Festival 2012. Relatively long with nearly 2 hours running time, but not long winded at all. How does this film maker achieve that?? Carefully filmed, very nearby the two main characters. At the same time it showed an inside view in a retirement home, and a small view over the fence into the film industry.

The retirement home at hand may look different from similar institutions in our own country, but that is only the surface. Like here in The Netherlands, it is a small population with very different people who did not choose each other, many of them leading vegetative lives. Our first main character (the "amah", a lifelong help) is still relatively active, in spite of her stroke. Being moved to the retirement home was her explicit wish, unwilling to become a burden for the family she served for 60 years. This particular situation is something we cannot imagine in our own world, but apparently it exists there.

The other main characters is the last living son of the family. Though not being blood relatives, we see the two main characters behave like mother and son. To the outside world they explain their relationship as mother and godson, or alternatively as aunt and nephew, whatever fits the situation best. Her position as an "amah" is not known to others than the immediate family members, who all seem to care for her.

The inside view in the film industry is less extensive and mostly concentrated in the beginning, with a hefty meeting about an ever growing budget that some film maker needed, and a subsequent meeting with a bank manager about the fine print in a contract that was ignored by the bank. It merely serves to portray the "son" part in the story, and to explain why he is abroad for longer periods and cannot always find time to visit the retirement home. This has the definite purpose to prevent putting him on display as someone not caring. We see the fact that he really cares confirmed in the way he brings her along to a industry screening of this newly produced film, presenting her as his aunt.

I saw this film during the film festival in Norway; it's been a long, long time since I watched a movie which captivated me even after the credit started to roll.

It's a movie which primarily focus on every little moment of an elderly woman, but it is never a dull moment as the first impression might seem. It's a movie which really drives you to care for the characters in a natural way as opposed to many films where they "force" you with "natural" gimmicks. No, this movie broke most typical western styles, but at the same time made it entertaining and thrilling.

It's a movie where there're no explosions, no foresight drama or no extreme twists... it's truly, a simple life, which showed me how simple it can be to be humble, and care for those we love.

This is a simple film - two main characters with no blood relation and yet deeply connected to each other - and presumably made with a modest budget. It is slow, and arguably a tad long (but I am OK with it), but as the story evolves I begin to care about them.

As a film it is a great antidote to the sex, violence, intriguing plots, and CGI (I must admit I like some of those too) that we are so used to on the big screen these days. Director Ann Hui indicated the story was inspired by true events and I believe her. What makes this story unique is we are looking at love, respect and a feeling of duty and obligation between two human beings as if they were mother and son - but they are not. Instead, what started out as a servant-master relationship transcended itself to become something more sublime when the care-giver became incapacitated and the table was turned. When this happened the roles were reversed and yet it happened in such an unforced, natural and leisurely fashion.

There are tear-jerking moments, of course, but they came in such an unpretentious manner. The ending is as you would expect when age and illness took their toll on Tao Jie, played by Deannie Yip. And yet, I finished watching the film feeling uplifted, and with a strong sense of hope on humanity.