A Simple Life (2012)
Average Rating: 7.5/10
Reviews Counted: 25
Fresh: 23 | Rotten: 2
No consensus yet.
Average Rating: 7.9/10
Critic Reviews: 7
Fresh: 7 | Rotten: 0
No consensus yet.
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Average Rating: 4/5
User Ratings: 992
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Movie Info
Since her teenage years, Chung Chun-Tao has worked as an amah - a servant - for the Leung family. Known as Ah Tao, she witnessed every aspect of the family's life. Now, after 60 years of service, she is looking after Roger, who works in the film industry and is the only member of the family still resident in Hong Kong. One day Roger comes home from work to find that Ah Tao has suffered a stroke. He rushes her to hospital, where she announces that she wants to quit her job and move into anursing
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All Critics (25) | Top Critics (7) | Fresh (23) | Rotten (2)
[T]he sort of film in which every detail feels unforced but essential.
Top CriticHere is a film with the clarity of fresh stream water, flowing without turmoil to shared destiny. No plot gimmicks. No twists and turns. Just a simple life.
An exquisite and wise moment of celluloid portraiture.
Often poignant but leavened with humor.
Though overlong, Hui's valentine never milks the drama for tears, maintaining an unsentimental focus on the central duo's playful chemistry and the loving way Ah Tao's attention to detail is repaid.
Ms. Hui, a rare successful female director in the Hong Kong film industry, drew her story from real events, and the movie retains a tonic flavor of the everyday: its drama unfolds simply, without explosive moments but not without emotion
Driven by the fantastic performances of Andy Lau and Deanie Ip and its authentic writing, A Simple Life is the type of film you pop in to remind yourself that there is hope for the human race.
eteran Director Ann Hui paints in delicate strokes, but while this may seem soft he is playing with powerful emotions.
Not since The Diving Bell and the Butterfly earned cinematographer Janusz Kaminski (Schindler's List) another Oscar nomination in 2008 has there been such a good film about incapacity.
Compassionate but never sentimental, heartfelt but not tear-jerking and at once very funny and deeply moving.
It's a gentle, flawlessly observed picture, moving but never sentimental, about getting old, fulfilling familial duties, killing time and being killed by time.
In keeping with the title and the heroine, A Simple Life is a straightforward and unassuming gem.
Perturbing truths about old age nestle inside an outwardly sentimental shell - it's a less cosy or placid prospect than it seems.
It is a quite lovely film.
A sad and sombre film that uses a plangent piano soundtrack to tug at the heartstrings, but tempers this with a downbeat reality.
Earnest glow and slowly progressing torpor, like a dying nuclear fuel rod.
A film that will fill you with a sense of hope, and a glimpse into the realities of life in modern Hong Kong.
This poignant and emotional relationship study between an ageing servant and her employer requires more punch and focus, but is still a tender and heartfelt piece of drama with outstanding lead performances.
Director Hui shows a different side to Hong Kong cinema in a tender drama that's illuminated by the marvellous Ip.
Well-acted, deeply human and emotionally resonating.
...a compelling yet uneven piece of work.
Hui depicts the passage of time and the poignancies of the past with subtle, elliptical episodes, and the film draws on deep emotions without succumbing to sentimentality.
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Foreign Titles
- A Simple Life (DE)
- A Simple Life (Tao jie) (UK)
