A Time to Live and a Time to Die

Original title: Tóngnián wangshì

IMDb RATING

YOUR RATING

The semi-autobiographical film on director Hou Hsiao-Hsien's childhood and adolescence, when he was growing up in Taiwan, living through the deaths of his father, mother and grandmother.The semi-autobiographical film on director Hou Hsiao-Hsien's childhood and adolescence, when he was growing up in Taiwan, living through the deaths of his father, mother and grandmother.The semi-autobiographical film on director Hou Hsiao-Hsien's childhood and adolescence, when he was growing up in Taiwan, living through the deaths of his father, mother and grandmother.

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

7.5/10

3.6K

YOUR RATING

See production info at IMDbPro

Awards
- 8 wins & 5 nominations

Photos7

+ 3

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Storyline

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Did you know

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Trivia
This film is inspired by screenwriter-turned-director Hou Hsiao-Hsien's coming-of-age story. It is the second installment of Hou Hsiao-Hsien's "Coming-of-Age Trilogy" that features three prominent Taiwanese screenwriters' coming-of-age stories - the other two are A Summer at Grandpa's (1984) (inspired by the childhood memories of Chu Tien-Wen) and Dust in the Wind (1986) (inspired by the coming-of-age story of Wu Nien-Jen).

Connections
Featured in When Cinema Reflects the Times: Hou Hsiao-Hsien and Edward Yang (1993)

User reviews19

Review

Featured review

9/10

My favourite Hao's film.

Although I think The Puppetmaster is the real best masterpiece of Hao, Time to live and the time to die is the one I love most. Despite the implication and background of Taiwan history in the film, as I am not so clear about it and not close to me, the story about growing-up is the reason that the film move me so much. The trip of the main kid "ar Ha" and his grandma become the warmest and most unforgettable part of the film. By the way, I think the relatively slow and quiet style of Hao extremely suit the story of rural and history background, much better than modern city background.