Clevercell Very disappointing...

VeteranLight I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

Odelecol Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

Siflutter It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

b-64373 A simple life tells us a story of a housemaid' last year of her life. The heroine of the film, named Tao, had been a housemaid in Andy' family for the last 60 years. She came to Andy's house when she was 16 years old , she grew up with Andy's mother and the growing up of Andy was before her very eyes. She served Andy with great care including cooking dinner, washing clothes, cleaning the room as well as feeding a cat. At the first shot of the movie, Tao was going across a crowed and noisy outdoor market to buy fishes for dinner, she picked up the goods so carefully that the shopkeeper seemed impatient. When she came home, she prepared a big meal for Andy. Ai night, Tao was always standing in the balcony waiting for Andy, therefore every time Andy came home, she would see the warm yellow light on the second floor, then Tao would serve the food for Andy .That is almost everything Tao will do in her daily life. However, one time Andy saw the yellow light when he came back but he could not open the door. He yelled loudly, hoping Tao would hear him, but finally he realized something was wrong with Tao. Tao suffered a stroke and could hardly walk without the walking stick. Andy was wondering to find a new housemaid to take care of her while Tao insisted to live in the nursery using her own money. Tao came into the nursery, and Andy couldn't get used to the life without Tao, he realized how important Tao was. Tao was already the number of his family from the bottom of her heart, Tao was even more intimate than his mother. He began to company Tao with unprecedented love and patient until her death. The whole story is really flat and slow, you can hardly find any ups and downs. Even when it comes the death, it seems so natural. But it still has a big power to move audiences, because so many little details in the film are likely happening in everyone's daily life. At the end, we all have to face the fear of death ,and at that time, all we need is love and company. In this film, wo can see so clearly the grand love in small person, it's pure and selfless.

hkauteur Life for a parent is a bad deal. You raise someone for 20 years and then are abandoned by them to face death for the next 40 years. Strangely, it's the only selfless thing we do as human beings. But it seems so unfair, someone takes care of you, you should take care of them as well right?That is the central idea of A Simple Life. The story is about Toh Jie, transliterated as "Sister Peach" (played by Deannie Yip), is a household maid who has worked for the Leung family for 60 years. She still currently takes care of the young master, Roger (played by Andy Lau). Her health deters and now she in need of Roger to take care of her.Deannie Yip owns this role. She reminded me of my grandmother at times, who is currently in an old folk's home. She has the physicality of an old person down, the little tics and the way you lean to take off weight when you walk. She deserved that Venice Film Festival award. Heck, give her more!Andy Lau has come a long way since his younger days of "playing-a-heartthrob-who- dies-at-the-end-of-the-movie-to-his own-pop-soundtrack" thing. He has learned how to use the subtlety of his face and knows when to chew up a moment. There's one noteworthy scene where Roger is hanging out with his childhood friends and they all decide to give Sister Peach a call and reminisce about the great food dishes she used to make for them. This aches Roger as he realizes this is basically how people will remember her. And I urge people to watch Andy Lau in that moment.There is a little detail with the layout of the old folk's home I wanted to address: it had an open door at the entrance. Many times the old people just opened and closed the door and exited freely. My mother and I debated the reality of this, usually these old folk's home have a exit button that unlocks the door for safety purposes. There are scenes where Sister Peach and other elderly people are opening and closing this door without supervision. What's worse is the old folk's home is right across from a mechanic's shop! Thinking more about this, it dawned on me: this is an aesthetic choice. It is probably unrealistic but what that aesthetic choice lead me to consider how dangerous the situation was for the elderly people.As I realized this, there was many aesthetic choices in the story that were designed to raise a discussion about how we should treat and handle elderly people. I admired its subtlety. For example, there's a scene where Roger and his sister discuss how Sister Peach's expenses should be handled and it gets pretty dark as it starts to sound like a business transaction.There are a lot of funny moments in the movie and thank goodness for it. It is very grim to watch old people suffering and deteriorating in an old folk's home. The film knows that and shows that there is indeed laughter in their lives, and Sister Peach does not have it too bad. The story is not about how the whole world is against her. We never linger on her suffering. Things are never dialed up to eleven. It retains a lot of realism (a lot of the old people in the old folk's home seem to belong there) and still manages to find drama within it. Good work, Ann Hui!That's one major thing I appreciated about this movie: it does not set out to make you cry. It could have easily done so using melodramatic sensibilities and it does not set that as it's goal.I did not cry at the end, but I felt the touching cleanse of a cry. I left the theater thinking about how I should treat my grandparents, my parents someday and even the elderly in general. Sometimes they need help walking down from a bus, someone to talk to or simply they just need to feel needed. The film's heart is in the right place and I ultimately agree with it's sentiments: nobody that raised and took care of you deserves to die alone.For more reviews, please visit my blog @ http://hkauteur.wordpress.com

Ruben Mooijman 'A simple life' is a film about human kindness. About caring for others. About harmonious human relationships. Does this sound cheesy? It's not meant that way. The film shows how caring for one another can make a difference, but it's never sentimental and there's no tear jerking at all. The story centres around A Tao, a housekeeper who cooks and cleans for film producer Roger, who is not married and travels a lot. When returning home from one of his travels from Hong Kong to mainland China, A Tao doesn't open the door. She has had a stroke and after her stay in the hospital, she moves to an old people's home. Roger visits her regularly and gradually they become closer. At the start of the movie they are employer and employee, at the end they are friends. Director Ann Hui shows this process with small, symbolic scenes. When A Tao serves Roger his food in one of the first scenes, only one word is spoken, when she asks him to move something on the table to make room for the dish she has prepared. The contrast with another key scene, later on in the movie, is huge. After A Tao has recovered from the stroke, Roger takes her to the first screening of his new film and introduces her to movie stars as his godmother. Afterwards, they walk away hand in hand, chattering affectionately about the film business. A Tao visibly enjoys this party, and the attention she receives from her 'godson'. This is just one of the examples of the wonderful acting by Deannie Yip, a famous actress in the Hong Kong film industry but unknown to the rest of the world. In this film, she seemingly effortlessly plays A Tao first as a humble servant, then as a physically handicapped patient and also as a coquettish lady. How wonderful it must have been for her to receive a 'best actress'-award at the Venice Film Festival for her part as A Tao. The film focuses on the relationship between Roger and A Tao, and the development of their mutual appreciation. Apart from that, not much really happens. There are some humorous little scenes that will make you smile, as well as some more emotional ones. This is a slow and low-profile film, to be appreciated by a typical art-house audience.

Harry T. Yung Those who have watched "The way we are" (2008) will know exactly what to expect from today's Ann Hui – films that are delightfully free of sappy melodrama. In that film we share the ordinary, everyday life of several sibling-linked families, some more affluent but not really rich, others less fortunate but not quite on poverty line. There is no manipulation of the audience's emotions, but towards the end, there is one scene in which the affluent uncle (played beautifully by KO Chi-shum), hitherto quite typically no-nonsense business-like (although there is no sign of his looking down on poor relatives), matter-of-factly said to his bright sister-son something to the effect of "Don't worry if your exam results are not good enough to get you into university here. We (he and another uncle) will finance your university education abroad. That's the least we can do to reciprocate how your mother looked after us when we were small". The very casual way he said this is enough to bring a lump to your throat."A simple life" rings true in the same way – genuine emotion does not need melodramatic manipulation.As the last of a trilogy loosely, thematically linked ("my model of experimentation", said director Ann Hui) with the aforementioned and "The post-modern life of my aunt" (2006), "A simple life" is based on producer Roger Lee's true story with domestic maid Tao who had been part of his life from day one, and became a default mother when his entire family emigrated to the US. In the film, Deannie Yip and Andy Lau are pitch-perfect as Tao and Roger, drawing from their numerous previous screen corroborations as mother and son. In an interview with Time Out, Hong Kong, director Ann Hui also intimated that on the process of aging, she has deep personal experience with her own mother. In the film, Roger took Tao to a premiere of a film he produced, but Hui said she had second thoughts about doing the same with her mother, fearing that the reaction might be "Are you giving me hints? (about putting her in an old folks' home)" Starting with Tao going to an old folks' home and ending at her natural death at old age, the simple story is simply told, with surprisingly gentle humour. Through inevitable vicissitudes, human goodness and compassion surface. There are some eccentric characters and flawed human nature to various degrees, but no real villains. As in "The way we are" the warmth that brims over always brings a lump to your throat, such as Tao at the old folks' home receiving a call from Roger and friends at a card game, thinking of her – middle-aged men that she had know since they were little kids."A simple life" is a film that is true to life. An added bonus to local viewers is a delightful proliferation of cameos from household names in the Hong Kong cinematic scene.