A Simple Life(Limited Edition)

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A Simple Life(Limited Edition) Review

Directed by Ann Hui, A Simple Life (Tao Jie) is a film based on the true story of a woman who worked her entire life as a servant for the family of Hong Kong film producer Roger Lee (who co-wrote the script with Susan Chan), looking after Lee in particular from childhood to adulthood with such affection and devotion that when she suffered a stroke in her later years, Lee and his family reversed their roles and looked after her.

The film begins with Roger Leung (Andy Lau), an accountant in the film industry, who lives in an apartment in Hong Kong with an elderly woman he calls Ah Tao (Deanie Ip), a servant who has worked for his family since before he was even born and now works for him personally. He is leaving on an overnight trip for a business meeting on a new film project and they discuss what she should cook for him while he's gone. When he says he wants ox tongue, a particular favorite dish of his, she chidingly reminds him that he's supposed to be avoiding fatty foods, to which he responds by reminding her that she eats things she shouldn't even though she's supposed to be watching her cholesterol. After he leaves, Ah Tao begins preparing the requested dish anyway. The scene quickly establishes that the relationship between the two is one of long acquaintance, almost familial in the level of informal familiarity displayed.

When Roger returns from his trip however, he finds Ah Tao collapsed on the floor. He calls an ambulance and gets her to the hospital, where they determine that she's had a stroke and will need extensive care and rehabilitation. Suddenly the structure of their lives is disrupted. Ah Tao, who has never been dependent on anyone and has always looked after others, at first stubbornly insists that she should retire and move to a retirement home. And that she can pay her own way. But Roger knows that this is impossible and takes over, first finding a nursing home for her close to the apartment and the neighborhood she is familiar with. In a fortunate twist of fate, the nursing home turns out to belong to an old friend (Anthony Wong), a former actor who went into the nursing home business after he got too old for action films.

A lot of the film deals with how Ah Tao adjusts to the changes forced on her by her stroke, starting with living in the nursing home where nothing is familiar and she doesn't know anyone, and where she's dependent on others for things she used to do for herself. And then going through rehabilitation for her stroke, having to relearn how to do the most basic things. Deanie Ip gives a compelling performance, showing Ah Tao's anxieties at her new situation mainly with her eyes and her body language as she warily takes in her surroundings and the strangers she now lives with. I can't recall ever seeing a movie that more realistically depicts this experience, particularly from the point of view of the person going through it, and this alone would make A Simple Life well worth seeing. But there's far more to the film, which makes it all the more compelling.

Ann Hui's director's touch is very subtle, showing bonds of affection and compassion but never descending into cheap sentimentality. And never flinching away from the hard parts, which you instinctively know are coming. There's no musical score in the background to set any kind of artificial mood, there's only what you see unfolding on the screen. The film progresses like a series of snapshots, slices of life strung together. Ah Tao, on her first night at the nursing home, getting up and making her way to the restroom with difficulty but determined to do it on her own, then going from stall to stall to find one she deems clean enough. Roger suddenly having to do his own laundry for the first time in his life, having to read a manual to learn how to use the washing machine. A bunch of Roger's friends from high school come over to the apartment to share the ox tongue Ah Tao had prepared, reminisce about all the different delicious dishes she'd fixed for them back in those days, then impulsively call her at the nursing home, singing to her through Roger's cell phone. Ah Tao coming back to visit the apartment and the first thing she does is to check for dust that's accumulated in her absence, tutting disapprovingly.

The nursing home, initially bleak, cramped and alien, gradually takes on moving depth as Ah Tao gets to know the other residents, each of whom has a story of their own. One old woman has been there for over twenty years, through three changes of ownership, and has not once had a visitor. A daughter visits her mother there, always ending up arguing because her mother signed everything over to her favored son - who never visits - but it's her daughter who's ended up having to pay the bills. An older woman turns out to be a visitor coming to see her much younger daughter who's in the nursing home because of a debilitating medical condition. A former headmaster's mind tends to wander unfocused but he quotes long passages from poetry and literature with ease. And last but far from least, an older man called Uncle Kin (Paul Chun), determined to hang on to every last bit of vitality he possesses, singing and dancing around... and always cadging money off of the other residents and even their visitors so he can sneak out and have a quickie with a young woman. And yet for all his clownish hustling, it's Uncle Kin who ends up making one of the most touching gestures in the film.

But a lot of what makes A Simple Life work is the portrayals of Andy Lau and Deanie Ip. Lau's Roger and Ip's Ah Tao have a lot of resonance and you can feel the things that bond them together. Ah Tao was an orphan when she began working for the Leung family and so has never had a family of her own beyond the one she's worked for all her life. And Roger is the only member of his family still living in Hong Kong, the rest having apparently emigrated to the US where they now live in San Francisco. Both of them are in a very real sense alone, and it is only with each other that they feel at ease. And when Roger visits Ah Tao at the nursing home and the people there comment that he is a dutiful nephew or godson, it's telling that he does not correct their impression. The naturalness that Lau and Ip bring to the relationship between Roger and Ah Tao comes from the fact that the actors have worked together many times over the years, and that Ip is Lau's real-life godmother.

A Simple Life doesn't moralize, or attempt to make any big points, or relate any grand tale. If anything, it's a kind of mosaic, reminding us that a life, any life, is composed of a lot of little pieces, and that it's all those pieces that make a life what it is. Highly, highly recommended.

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