Directed by: Ann Hui.
Written by: Susan Chan & Yan-lam Lee.
Starring: Andy Lau (Roger), Deannie Yip (Ah Tao), Paul Chun (Uncle Kin), Pik Kee Hui (Aunt Kam), So-ying Hui (Mui), Fuli Wang (Roger's mother).
After her parents died during
the Japanese occupation, Ah Tao (Deannie Yip) was forced into a life of
service. She spends the next 60 years serving several generations of the same
family. Most of the family has moved to America, but one has stayed behind in
China. This is Roger (Andy Lau), a quiet, unassuming movie producer. Ah Tao is
still his all-purpose servant – cooking, cleaning, shopping and keeping his
small apartment running. They share an unspoken bond and are quietly content in
their lives. Then Ah Tao has a stroke. Roger assumes that she will continue to
live with him, and that he’ll bring in some help for her, but she insists on
being put into an old folks home.
As I was watching A Simple Life,
I kept assuming that at some point director Ann Hui and her writers Susan Chan
and Yan-Lam Lee would add some false drama to the proceedings. That the old
folks home would be crooked or cruel. But while its run down and not exactly
high class, they do their best, and everyone is nice. Or that the sad old man
who keeps asking for money will eventually scam Ah Tao out of all of her
savings. But that doesn’t happen either. Instead A Simple Life is a precisely
what the title implies – the story of Ah Tao’s life, and her bond with Roger –
and his entire family. This is a true story about the type of woman that they
never make movies about.
Deannie Yip plays Ah Tao in one
of the best performances of the year. It is a simple, subtle, delicate
performance where she plays this normal woman who loves the family she has
served for decades, but does not want to be a burden on them. I assumed that
the movie would eventually become something like Tokyo Story or Make Way for
Tomorrow – two of the greatest films of all time, both about older parents who
are pretty much forgotten and rejected by their grown children. Roger starts
out the dutiful son surrogate who comes to visit Ah Tao in the old folks home.
She tells him not to bother, but he will not be deterred. He loves Ah Tao – has
been with her his entire life, and feels it is his duty to serve her to pay her
back for everything she has done for him. At the old folks home he says he is
her godson – and out at a movie premiere, says she is his Aunt. He does this
not for his own benefit, but to make her feel more comfortable – less
embarrassed by not having a family of her own – because she really does. And
the rest of his family feels the same way. When they come to visit Roger, they
all visit her as well – and love it. We meet Roger’s mother, and while she is a
nice woman who loves her children, and they love her, they feel an even deeper
connection with Ah Tao.
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