A Simple Life 桃姐 movie review

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.

Story

Hong Kong, the present day. Chung Chun-tao (Deanie Ip) has worked for the Leung family as an amah for 60 years. She now looks after Roger Leung (Andy Lau), who came back to Hong Kong in his 30s and is the only member of the family still based there. A film producer, Roger is currently working between Hong Kong and Beijing on a large-scale costume drama, Three Kingdoms, to be shot in China and involving two Hong Kong film-makers (Sammo Hung, Tsui Hark) and a Mainland financier (Yu Dong). Returning from one trip, Roger finds Tao has had a stroke; later, in hospital, she tells him she'd like to finally give up work and be put in an old people's home. Roger finds one in Sham Shui Po, in northwestern Kowloon, supervised by the business-like but kindly Miss Choi (Qin Hailu). Small and crowded, it's initially a depressing experience but Tao slowly gets to adjust and to know her fellow inhabitants, including the lively Kin (Paul Chun) who is always borrowing money for quickies with a local prostitute, the jealous Kam (Hui Bik-kee), and dialysis patient Mui (Hui So-ying). Roger's mother (Wang Fuli) visits from California and suggests providing Tao with a flat the family owns. But then Tao's health worsens.

Review

Among the wide range of subjects on which she's worked in the past 30 years, age has been a gently recurring theme for Hong Kong director Ann HUI 許鞍華. It's dealt with most explicitly in Summer Snow 女人・四十 (1995) and July Rhapsody 男人四十 (2001), her two odes to coping with middle age; but it's also there, in the background, of the comedy The Postmodern Life of My Aunt 姨媽的後現代生活 (2006) and her recent working-class duo, The Way We Are 天水圍的日與夜 (2008) and Night and Fog 天水圍的夜與霧 (2009). In A Simple Life 桃姐, Hui, now 64 herself, looks old age straight in the face, and comes up with her best and most touching film in a decade.

Based on the true story of veteran film producer Roger LEE 李恩霖 (who worked on Summer Snow) and his own family's amah Chung Chun-tao (who was born in Taishan, China, and joined Lee's family at the age of 13), the movie benefits enormously from its casting. Singer-turned-actress Deanie IP 葉德嫻, best known for her character roles during the '80s and early '90s (My Name Ain't Suzie 花街時代 (1985), Dances with Dragon 與龍共舞 (1991)), plays Tao with an unsentimental mixture of practicality and devotion, and in special make-up the now 63-year-old Ip looks utterly convincing (and almost unrecognisable) as the 70-something Tao. But equally good, in a downplayed way, is megastar Andy LAU 劉德華 (whose Focus Films Ltd 映藝娛樂有限公司 also co-invested) in the role of Lee, here renamed Roger Leung. In their many scenes together, Lau, with deft, almost invisible strokes, comes to embody the emotional heart of the film, as well as its theme of personal and familial responsibility. The two actors, who've played mother and son on TV and film almost a dozen times during the past 30 years, have an unforced chemistry that money couldn't buy.

Most of all, the film isn't a downbeat, depressing study of old age and approaching death. Hui keeps the tone light with some lively characters in the home (especially Paul CHUN 秦沛 as an ageing lothario), a typically Hong Kong practicality about matters like money, and jokey cameos by a large number of real-life movie people either playing themselves (NING Hao 寧浩, Raymond CHOW 鄒文懷) or unnamed versions of themselves (Sammo HUNG 洪金寶, TSUI Hark 徐克, Mainland producer YU Dong 于冬, the last an executive producer of the actual movie). Though an early comic scene of Hung, Tsui and Lau's character scamming some money from Yu looks like setting a too insiderly tone, in the longer span it can be seen as keeping the movie from becoming just another disease-of-the-week melodrama — as do later cameos by Anthony WONG 黃秋生 as an entrepreneurial old people's home owner and Chapman TO 杜汶澤 as a dentist. The use of real-life personalities also fits with the film's melding of fact and fiction.

At almost two hours, A Simple Life is over-long, especially in the middle section where the central story doesn't progress enough. But the film recovers its sense of purpose with a moving final stretch that avoids downbeat clinical detail in favour of a positive approach towards its two characters' relationship. In the only other major role, Mainland actress QIN Hailu 秦海璐 (The Piano in a Factory 鋼的琴 (2010), Return Ticket 到阜陽六百里 (2010)) is excellent as the home's practical but kindly supervisor.

Red One photography by YU Lik-wai 余力為 — in his third collaboration with Hui after the documentary-like Ordinary Heroes 千言萬語 (1999) and more conventional Postmodern — is discreetly warm-toned and well-appointed, and way different from his work with director JIA Zhangke 賈樟柯 and his gritty, hand-held images in the new Love and Bruises 花. Roger Lee himself worked on the script with Susan CHAN 陳淑賢, better known for her genre movies like Tokyo Raiders 東京攻略 (2000) or Koma 救命 (2004).



劇情簡介
本片榮獲第48屆金馬獎最佳導演、最佳男主角、最佳女主角，2011威尼斯影展最佳女主角獎，許鞍華導演執導，由葉德嫻與劉德華繼《法外情》後再度合作，敘述一段觸動人心的主僕之情。
鍾春桃十三歲開始在梁家擔任傭人，總共六十年。梁家最近十年就剩桃姐和梁家的少爺Roger一起生活。主僕之間相處頗有默契，但鮮有交流。有一天桃姐突然中風送院。

怕成為別人負擔的桃姐，主動要求入住老人院，Roger心裡過意不去，但亦不得不承認這是對大家最好的安排。老人院是一個被大社會冷落的小世界，桃姐認識了自以為風趣兼興趣多多的堅叔、恬靜安份的梅姑、勢利又善妒的金姨，彼此各有不同經歷和際遇，但現在都是境況相同的「淪落人」，而桃姐和Roger從這時才開始真正展開一段觸動人心的主僕情。

導演許鞍華以該片監製李恩霖真實故事為本，刻畫劉德華與葉德嫻主僕間深厚的情誼，側寫香港世道變遷，兩人細膩感人的互動與導演從容揮灑的節奏，簡單真實撼動人心。

片中有相當多中港影視圈名人客串演出，包括徐克、洪金寶、于冬 (本片出品人)、宮雪花、 寧浩(《瘋狂的賽車》導演)、鄒文懷、羅蘭、黃秋生、杜汶澤等人。


Directed by: Ann Hui (許鞍華)
Starring: Deanie Ip (葉德嫻) as Ah Tao, Andy Lau (劉德華) as Roger, Qin Hailu (秦海璐) as Miss Choi
Running Time: 119 Minutes
Language: in Cantonese with Chinese and English subtitles

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