Zhang Yimou's "To Live" is the most personal film he ever made—a 1994 historical epic that strips away his signature visual spectacle to follow one Chinese family across four decades of civil war, forced labor campaigns, and cultural upheaval. Ge You plays Xu Fugui, a gambler whose recklessness costs his family everything; Gong Li plays Jiazhen, his wife, whose capacity for endurance and eventual forgiveness gives the film its moral center; and Jiang Wu is Wan Erxi, their son-in-law, who arrives as a stranger and becomes the warmth the story needs. Pete Wright and Andy Nelson track the film's shadow puppets as an emotional through-line, dig into the novel versus film question, and wrestle with why this particular Zhang Yimou—the quietest, most naturalistic one—might be the best one.
The conversation covers Ge You's transformation from comic actor to Cannes standout, why Andy reads Jiazhen rather than Fugui as the film's true change character, the food motif threading through tragedy after tragedy, and why the story of how this film came to be banned is more procedural than political.
Watch our full conversation on YouTube.
Full episode resources—including streaming links, the Yu Hua novel, and the full transcript—are available here.
🔒 This episode includes member-only bonus content. The movie ends. The conversation goes further—and there's more of it in the member feed. Become a member.
🎧 Members get this episode early and ad-free in their private feed—plus every show in The Next Reel family. 
The Next Reel Family of Film Shows:

• Cinema Scope: Bridging Genres, Subgenres, and Movements | The Film Board | Movies We Like | The Next Reel | Sitting in the Dark

Connect With Us:

• Web | Letterboxd | Flickchart | Instagram | Bluesky | YouTube | Discord
• Your Hosts: Andy | Pete
• Merch Store | Audible