For a director like Ann Hui (許鞍華), who excels when dealing with everyday reality, it is understandable that age becomes a recurring theme. Among the Hong Kong doyenne’s wide-ranging oeuvre in the past 30 years, middle-aged experiences have been studied in Summer Snow (女人四 十, 1995) and July Rhapsody (男人四 十, 2002), while, to a lesser extent, the subject of getting old is addressed in The Postmodern Life of My Aunt (姨媽的後現代生活, 2006).
With A Simple Life (桃姐), Hui’s newest film, the 65-year-old director looks old age directly in the eye and tells a bittersweet, heartwarming story about a relationship between a man and his servant. The film sees Andy Lau (劉德華) and Deanie Ip (葉德嫻) reunited on the big screen for the first time in 23 years; the latter won top honors at the Venice International Film Festival and the Golden Horse Awards (金馬獎) last year for her role in the film.
The 64-year-old Ip plays Ah Tao, a domestic helper who has worked as maid and nanny for several generations of the Leung family since her teens. Over the 60 years that Ah Tao dedicated to serving the household, elders passed away, children were born and grew up, and most members of the family emigrated. She now takes care of Roger (Lau), a bachelor film producer and the last family member to remain in Hong Kong.
One day, Ah Tao falls ill when preparing supper. In the evening, Roger returns from a trip to Beijing and finds the aging servant unconscious after a stroke.
Believing she has become a burden, Ah Tao asks Roger to put her into a nursing home. Worn and crowded, the new environment seems depressing to Ah Tao at first, but she gradually adjusts and makes friends with the other residents.
But life without Ah Tao makes Roger begin to realize just how important she is to him and he decides to look after the woman who has nursed him all his life. The two grow closer to each other, and their mutual affection brings solace and contentment to their lives. As Ah Tao’s health deteriorates, Roger prepares for the final farewell.
Drawn from the life story of Hong Kong film producer Roger Lee (李恩霖), who co-wrote the script with Susan Chan (陳淑賢), and his family’s servant Chung Chun-tao (鍾春桃), the film is an eloquent manifestation of Hui’s aptitude for telling heartfelt tales of everyday life. The veteran director takes a slice-of-life approach to her subjects and confidently lets the narration slowly progress to reveal the growing bond between a man and his amah, a disappearing breed of domestic helpers who devote lifelong service to a single family.
The narrative weight would not hold, however, without the award-winning performances by Ip and Lau, who have played mother and son on television and in movies numerous times since the 1980s. Having retired from the big screen in 2000, Ip returns with a quiet determination, investing her role with a sensible mixture of dignity and practicality. In an admirably understated manner, megastar Lau plays a man who learns and fulfills his personal and familial responsibilities with subtle changes of emotion. When the two come together, they form dynamics that are always grounded in life and never feel forced.
Though the film deals with old age and death, the overall tone is kept light with vivid characters, like that of veteran actor Paul Chun (秦沛), who plays an aging Don Juan, and the buoyant cameos by a bevy of real-life filmmaking professionals, such as Hong Kong’s Sammo Hung (洪金寶) and Tsui Hark (徐克), as well as director Ning Hao (寧浩) and producer Yu Dong (于冬) from China.
Staying true to the spirit of the story and its protagonists, A Simple Life gracefully avoids the easy route of sentimentality and exudes the warmth and humanity that have come to define the director’s oeuvre. The affecting work looks at the elderly and their caretakers with compassion and restraint and is one of Hui’s best films to date.
It seems every few days one bumps into one of those “real man” comments in which Taiwan is urged to “face reality” or similar, and “make a deal,” with the speaker implying that soon it will be too late. “Deal” advocates always present themselves as having a superior grip on reality, and the manly ability to make the “hard choice.” Their testosterone-laden language often echoes that of Taiwan sellout advocates. Note that such commentary always specifies a process (“make a deal, work with, make progress”), never the end state of what occupation by a violent authoritarian colonialist state will entail. In
Taiwan’s English education system is being pulled apart by three opposing forces. Bilingual Nation 2030 pulls students toward English and global communication. Artificial Intelligence (AI) readiness pulls them toward digital judgment, verification and AI-mediated work. But Taiwan’s old exam culture pulls them back toward memorization, grammar drills, timed reading and correct answers. If the education system keeps using old exams to define success, it risks producing graduates who are neither genuinely bilingual nor genuinely AI-ready, but trained for tasks machines can already perform. The first force is Bilingual Nation 2030. Launched in 2018, the policy aimed to “help Taiwan’s workforce connect
There are shadowy cabals plotting to sell out Taiwan to be annexed by China, by invasion if necessary. Fortunately, they are buffoons. In 2019, former Bamboo Union gangster and founder of the China Unification Promotion Party (CUPP), Chang An-le (張安樂, colorfully known as “White Wolf”), led a protest at the Legislative Yuan against comments made by then-premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) that in the event of an attack by China, he would never surrender, but would protect the nation by fighting to the end, even if he only had a broom. Chang had party members bring a wooden casket that they
June 1 to June 7 "If all Taiwanese were as afraid of dying as you, then what would happen?” Physician Shih Chiang-nan (施江南) reportedly said this to his wife Chen Chiao-tung (陳焦桐) after she urged him to stop intervening on behalf of Taiwanese soldiers stranded overseas after serving in the Japanese Army during World War II. Shih had clashed with high-ranking officials over the issue, engaged in several heated arguments with Taiwan governor-general Chen Yi (陳儀) and allegedly shouted at general Ko Yuan-fen (柯遠芬), chief of staff of the Taiwan Garrison Command, over
RSS