different elements that diverged from the original novel. The use of the shadow play and puppet theatre was to emphasize a different visual look. The ending of the film To Live is different from the novel’s because Zhang wanted to pass the censorship in China and gain approval from the audience in mainland China, even though the film has not been publicly screened in China yet. On the other hand, Zhang’s family had suffered enormously during the Cultural Revolution, but, as Zhang stated, they still survived. Thus, he felt that the book’s ending where everyone in Fu Gui’s family had died was not as reasonable. Furthermore, Zhang Yimou chose Ge You, who is famous for his comedic roles to play the protagonist, Fu Gui. Ge You actually inspired Zhang to add more humorous elements in the film, therefore it is more reasonable not to kill every character at the end. Differences from the novel Moved the setting from rural southern China to a small city in northern China. Added elements of shadow puppetry. A symbol of wealth. Shows that it is at the mercy of others and can do nothing about its own future. Second narrator and the ox not present in the film. Fugui had a sense of political idealism that he lost by the end of the film. The novel is a retrospective, but Zhang adapts the film without the remembrance tone. Zhang introduced the elimination of Yu Hua's first person narration Only Fugui survived in the novel, but Fugui, Jiazhen, Erxi, and Mantou all survived in the film. Adaptation In the film “To Live”, Zhang Yimou did not choose to directly express the theme of the novel, but to reduce the number of deaths, change the way of death, and cut into the doomed sense of fate to eliminate the audience's immediate depression brought by the story itself. In the film, these deliberately set dramatic turns highlight the theme that those infinitely small people, as living “others”, can only rely on living instinct to bear suffering in history, times and social torrents. The theme of the novel- the ability to bear suffering and the optimistic attitude to the world- is hidden in these little people who are helpless to their own fate but still alive strongly. As a film art that can restore extreme reality and stimulate the audience’s audio-visual sense to the greatest extent, if it