Johnny Ma is a Canadian filmmaker of Chinese origin who decided to make films in his country of origin. Already with his debut feature film, the extraordinary crime drama “Old Stone” about a taxi driver whose life will turn into complete chaos after he ends up in the jaws of the Chinese bureaucracy after a traffic accident, Ma has shown himself to be an author with a lot of potential. Although his next film is somewhat weaker, “To Live, to Sing” is a solid drama that again partly deals with the hell of bureaucracy, but it is still a much gentler, calmer story in which it contrasts traditional and modern China.
This old, disappearing traditional China is represented here by a theater troupe performing ancient Chinese opera, a form of entertainment that interests only a few. Zhao is the manager of a theater company that lives and performs in an old house in a part of the city slated for demolition and modernization in one of China’s megacities. Only a few people come to see their performances, mostly an older audience, and that’s mainly because of the only young member of the group, Zhao’s niece Dan Dan, who is the absolute star of the show. However, Dan Dan also dreams of leaving and a different career, realizing that the theater group’s time is coming to an end, and neither she, nor anyone else except Zhao, know that the building in which they perform is slated for demolition.
The manager will try in every way to save not only the theater group together, but also the old building from demolition. And “To Live, to Sing” was one of those bitter-sweet dramas with occasional comedic elements, at times surreal, yet touching, exotic and completely universal stories. It is a film that stands out for its bright colors, which are not only reflected in the scenography, costumes and make-up of the traditional and archaic performances performed by the theater, but where modernity and tradition are constantly contrasted. And we constantly see excavators and other working machines crushing old houses and buildings in the neighborhood, approaching Zhao’s theater and without any hesitation they will raze it to the ground when it’s their turn.