The RAS Film Club is pleased to announce its first film screening of 2022. On January 18 we will watch Dying to Survive, a 2018 box office hit and record-breaking social drama directed by China's new generation filmmaker Wen Muye (文牧野) that prompted a healthcare reform in China.

Cheng Yong is a divorced and desolate man who sells Indian "love oil" in his store in Shanghai. His father needs constant care and a brain surgery, his ex-wife wants to take his son abroad and his rent is long past due. One day a man wearing layers of surgical masks walks into his shop and proposes him a business proposition. Desperate for money, Cheng agrees to smuggle a medicine from India used to cure chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) disease. Patent of this drug is with a Swiss company who sells at an astronomical price in China. Cheng successfully recruits a group of accomplices and his business takes off. The prevalence of the Indian contraband alerts the police who vows to crack it down. A taskforce is formed, headed by Cheng's brother-in-law …

This film was a massive box office hit in 2018. Its social realist theme is based on the real story of Lu Yong, a CML patient who smuggled an unlicensed drug from India for 1,000 cancer sufferers in Shanghai, and sparked debate about China's healthcare policy. According to Reuters, Chinese Premier Mr. Li cited the film in an appeal to regulators to "speed up price cuts for cancer drugs" and "reduce the burden on families". The film was nominated in seven categories at the Golden Horse Awards in Taiwan in 2018 and won Best Actor, Best New Director and Best Screenplay awards. It also won Best Screenplay at the 42nd Montreal World Film Festival in the same year.

We hope you will join us to watch this phenomenal film.