Such a frustrating disappointment

Really Surprised!

I saw this movie before reading any reviews, and I thought it was very funny. I was very surprised to see the overwhelmingly negative reviews this film received from critics.

Blistering performances.

A hallowed cinematographer behind many of the most iconic Chinese contemporary films, Yimou Zhang's RED SORGHUM (1987), JU DOU (1990), Kaige Chen's FAREWELL MY CONCUBINE (1993), Wen Jiang's IN THE HEAT OF THE SUN (1994) and DEVILS ON THE DOORSTEP (2000), just to name a few, Gu's third directorial endeavour, LOVE FOR LIFE, which aligns with his two previous films, PEACOCK (2005) and AND THE SPRING COMES (2007), together they loosely construct a "rural" trilogy examining the personal hardship and societal pressure of the ordinary lives after the Culture Revolution.LOVE FOR LIFE is inspired by the real-life happenings about AIDS villages in the hinterland, where misconducts of blood transfusion can cause an entire village HIV-infected, since selling blood is a common means for those strapped for cash in these outlying and indigent areas. In its pre-title opening, a village schoolboy is succumbed to a poisoned apple and becomes the sporadic voice- over from six feet under, often sounds the death knell for one particular victim, which glazes the ominous story with a surrealistic touch.The boy himself is a fall guy for his father Qiquan (Pu), who has brought the deadly "heat disease" epidemic upon the village people through his blood-selling business. Qiquan is remorseless for his wrongdoings and infuriated by his son's murder, he refuses to apologise, out of guilt and conscience, Pu's father (Tao) volunteers to take in all the infected to the abandoned school where he administers, including his younger son Deyi (Kwok). A group-living life seems apt for them (deserted by the society and their families), among the worst things can happen are petty larceny and siphoning off the doled-out rice from the government, of course, until, the looming "elephant in the room" overtakes gallows humour.Deyi is attracted by Qinqin (Zhang), a comely young wife of his relative, who caught the disease just because she is pining for a shampoo which is popular among townsfolk. The film schematically veers from the wretched victim bunch to a torrid "Love in the times of AIDS" affair between these two, who eventually resolve to divorce from their respective spouses (both treat them like plague), and remarry, it is a race against their numbered days, but Gu invites viewers to revel in their carpe diem rollickings with an us-against-the-whole-world vengeance, which ends in the hot vs. cold, conscious vs. unconscious climax, where love overcomes morality.It is a great comfort that Gu is gallant enough to tackle with a topical and thorny issue under a contemporary background (1990s to be exact). Deep-rooted sexism, inherent weakness, outrageous superstition (a wedding ceremony for dead children), immoral avarice, along with the prejudice against HIV, all pointedly reflected from Gu's prism of storyboards. Being a cinematographer-turned-director, Gu's habitual astuteness of the awe-inspiring rural landscape can be anything but disappointing, and maverick musician Zuoxiaozuzhou's attendant score is distinctly pathos-arousing.Celebrated Hong Kong singer-cum-actor Aaron Kwok, throws down the gauntlet to play a rustic simpleton, bravely sports a local accent (albeit that Chinese audience are all aware that in real life, his Mandarin is far from perfect, people speak Cantonese in HK by the way), sacrifices his good- looks and discards his metropolitan glamour, admirably evokes both levity and poignancy with accurate propriety. Ziyi Zhang, in a more restrained fashion, attenuates her impetuous pride while accentuates her recalcitrant dignity, one of her career's best so far. Cunxin Pu, who has the same age as his on screen father Zeru Tao (both born in 1953), dazzles with spontaneous vulgarity and an appearance overhaul in his fitful presence, which is a far cry from his trademark positive screen image Chinese audience feels more familiar with. Wenli Jiang, Gu's wife and long-time muse, a naturalistic scene-stealer, enforces the most rip-roaring moment with her pig-riding gimmick.LOVE FOR LIFE, the story itself has a rich vein of potentiality to mine, instead of skewering the most obvious one, the cause behind these man-made tragedies, Gu's film opts for a safer and artistically compromised ground to compose an ode to love, both physically and spiritually, it is done with significant potency, but a feeling of being short-changed cannot be expelled, regardless of how many times an impassioned Qinqin reads the words on their hard-earned marriage certificate in the ending.

The film Love For Live is based on a novel called Dream of Ding Village written by Yan Lianke, directed by Changwei Gu and script-written by Changwei Gu, Weiwei Yang and Laoshi Yan released on 10, May, 2011 in China (Douban.com). The story of this film is Zhao Qiquan who is running illegal blood trade business in his villages cause lots people infected with HIV and his twelve years old son was killed with poison tomato from revenge and the killer was not found and everyone in the village thinks he deserve it. After grief funeral, the father of Zhao Qiquan beg the village people to give him a chance atone for his son's crime by take care of infected people in empty village school for the sake of his younger son Zhao Deyi who also infected with HIV. After few days living in village school, Zhao Deyi meet a new girl Sang Qinqin who is kick out and sent to village school by her husband because she infected with HIV. Here the love story comes in, a man and a woman both been discriminated by the world fall in love in this little non-discrimination new world. Sang Qinqin's red jacket been steal cause the harmonious of this new world fracture and the death of illness cause people panic finally, Shang Qinqin's husband caught Shang Qinqin and Zhao Deyi in bed break this little new world apart. Through all the suffering of being together, they still can not run away from the illness, Zhao Deyi suicide after Shang Qinqin dead.When I first watched this film three years ago, I was struggle to conclude the film good or bad. On the side of framing, camera angle and color use is an artistic cinematographic style which is so good on my point of view. Frist, the film used a super long shot from sky in the begging and the end of this movie to give the idea of present life and after death life in traditional Chinese culture which match with the dead twelve years old boy as the voice of god telling the story about after his death. The long shot on street in the film always give the depth of field. On the scene of infected people been discriminate by neighbor on street, the infected people been placed on the intersection and everyone walk by from left to right not dare to have any physical contact with these people shows how much the infected people been left in the world just in one long shot. The middle shot on attempt hang them self scene, used the reflection on mirror gives a long shot effect but more attention on the characters. The color used of red is the most impressive thing to me. On the Shang Qinqin's first scene, she came out in red give the dark death word a feeling of warm, the married with Zhao Deyi scene, the red bring the contradiction of happy and sad, the happy of their expression that they been married and the sad of Zhao Deyi start to have symptom on his body which means he is not far from death. In the end, the suicide blood from crack between door and floor gives the death of red.However, with all the good of footage the film is still bad on the side of story structure. From the begging to the village school the structure of this film is polyphonic narrative which tells the story of different people when they have AIDS and story is about humanity. Most of people shows the ugly side of humanity;the worship of money. Zhao Qiquan bring the village people HIV for money and in the village school he tell the infected people that he will sell them coffin with discount. The two infected people help Zhao Qiquan cut village trees for two luxury coffins. The infected thief steal Shang Qinqin's red jacket and the cooker steal rice. All of these ugliness tells the audience the humanity of pursue benefit even at the end their life. Zhao Qiquan's father here plays the good side of humanity, take care of infected people because the guilty of what his son did even his grandson dead. He is also a represent of traditional moral value which we can see from the scene of caught in bed, his younger son and Shang Qinqin was locked in the room that they have sex by Shang Qinqin's husband even she is kicked out by his husband but they have not divorce yet. So everyone around did not stop the beating on Shang Qinqin and he is feel guilty again result in he can not stop the falling apart of village school afterward. After the village school part the film suddenly put all the attention on the Shang Qinqin and Zhao Deyi and all the things are about classic love story that two people suffered all the difficult and being together. Although, the love story of two infected people is touching but it did not match up the early part of the film.Because of this assignment, after research of this film on internet I find the reason, that full version of this film is 150mins and the blood dealer Zhao Qiqun is the main character, the story was about two brother's different life. The 101mins version released in China is because of cinema can not take 150mins and too sensitive says by director (163.com. Para,4.). The film may be great in full version.

Usually I love to watch Cantonese movies, I mean the Hong Kong movies, I have seen many, just love most them in those I have seen. And I occasionally try Chinese (Mandarin) too so saw this movie which earlier made me so curious because of its title 'Til death do us part'. The title was sentimentally appealing like most of Korean romance-drama does so thought to give it a try would be worth.As I expected something, this movie gave me totally different experience. While listening to the words and dialogues I thought I was understanding it without subtitle, I went very close to the characters, just like living in the movie with them. The reason is I like emotional drama even the story or movie are not that good enough.This story happens in the early 90s of a Chinese remote village which located in a mountain region. Where the HIV/AIDS hit persons are all together kept away from the village. Just like a village with two ethics, both of them live their own lifestyle within the border created by themselves and restricted to contact or have the relationship between these two groups even they are related by blood.The plot looks really nice but the movie was bit slogging especially on initial parts then performance by the cast took the movie to the heights. Later half was very nice in fact very emotional. In my opinion tearjerkers would love to have it. I was not convinced for the ending part, the content they used for it was basically not true in the real World. But in a movie anything can possible, everything is up to the audience to decide whether they enjoy it as considering it an entertainer or complain like an they are expert. You can't just ignore the whole movie for the few flaws so giving it a try is really a good idea. That means it's not negligible nor a must see, for me it was like a half baked but I feel they could have made it better.

Plot: Story surrounds two people that find each other after their own lives fall apart when they are diagnosed with AIDS. Forced to live outside the village, they and others like them are discriminated against by their own neighbors and loved ones. In this setting, a man and a woman decide to make use of what time they have left.Review: Not much to say here really, the story is very slow and the characters aren't that likable. But the only saving grace of this movie was the bond that grew between the two main characters. In the end, I didn't like them any more than I did earlier, but their love story was heartfelt and true.