To Live [1994]

To Live ( simplified Chinese: 活着, traditional Chinese: 活著) is a 1993 novel by Chinese novelist Yu Hua. It describes the struggles endured by the son of a wealthy land-owner after the Revolution fundamentally alters the nature of Chinese society. The contrast between his pre-revolutionary status as a selfish fool who (literally) travels on the shoulders of the downtrodden and his post-revolutionary status as a persecuted peasant are stark.

Xu Fugui is a son of a local rich man and compulsive gambler. After he loses his entire family fortune, his father died with grief and indignation. To make a living, Fugui joined a shadowgraph to work. The Chinese civil war occurring at the time, and Fugui was forced to join the army. By the time he finally returned home two years later, he found out his mother died for stroke, and his daughter has become mute and lost most of her hearing from a fever. Years later, the only son of Fugui died for blood transfusion. The deaf-and-dumb daughter finally grew up and meets her husband. They were a happy couple until she died for dystocia. Soon after that, Fugui’s wife died for rickets, and his son in law died from a construction accident. Eventually, even Fugui’s last relative, his grandson Kugen (renamed Mantou in the 1994 movie adaptation), died from a food accident. In the end, Fugui bought one old cattle to accompany him. It seems the world left absolutely nothing for him, but he did not give up, he believes there are still hopes, just as what they say, things would get better and better…
The novel includes interesting first-hand descriptions of some of the less successful aspects of Collectivist policy, such as communal agriculture and the attempt to build a village-based steel industry.
A movie of this novel was released in 1994. Despite being less grim than the novel, it was banned in China and the director Zhang Yimou was banned from filmmaking for two years.

Link to download

[Fshare][6.0GB] To Live[1994]720p.HDrip.x264.AC3