At first, the troubles are the husband's own fault. Fugui (Ge You) is a degenerate gambler who loses his family home and fortune at dice. "Turtle spawn!" his old father cries, beating him with a stick. His wife Jiazhen (Gong Li) wants nothing more to do with him, and from a life of indolence he finds himself selling needles and thread on the street.
The man who won his house gives him a set of beautiful shadow puppets, and he goes on the road as an entertainer, quickly swept up by the Nationalist army to amuse the troops. Then one morning, drunk, he oversleeps as the army retreats, and he hears a thundering sound on the snow, which is the Red army advancing. Ever adaptable, he joins them, and eventually finds his way back to his hometown and his wife, son and daughter.
Life is very hard. But they survive under the new communist regime. (Ironically, the man who won his house at dice is executed as a counter-revolutionary landowner.) A childhood illness causes their daughter to become mute and hard of hearing, but in the precise arithmetic of matchmaking a likely partner is found for her: A supervisor of the Red Guards at a factory, who is lame.
The story progresses in terms of temporary advances and crushing setbacks, one caused when a starving doctor, jailed by the Red Guards, cannot assist at a crucial time because he has gorged himself on seven sweet buns. Another family loss is caused by an old friend, who vows he owes them a life, and will eventually be called upon for repayment. Years come and go; jolly murals of Mao Tse Tung appear on the courtyard walls, and then fade in the sun and rain. And somehow they live.
The best art, it is said, comes from turmoil - from hard times. In China no serious filmmaking took place for decades, and now great films are coming in a torrent from that country. The authorities are not always so happy to have the nation's past examined with such frankness, and with films like "To Live" and "The Blue Kite" (released earlier this year) there is a certain inexorable pattern: They are made, shown at foreign film festivals, honored ("To Live" won acting awards at Cannes), play briefly in a few sophisticated cinemas in Beijing or Shanghai, and then they disappear.
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