Director: Ren Gaoliang
A father's buried past collides with a present-day smuggling ring in "To Live Through Death," a 2024 Chinese action-crime drama directed by Ren Gaoliang.
What is To Live Through Death about?
Somewhere off the Pacific coast, a ruthless human-trafficking network preys on Chinese migrants, kidnapping and swindling anyone desperate enough to fall into its reach. Chen, a quiet man who has spent two decades hiding what he used to be, is forced back into motion when his adopted daughter is taken by the same organization. He teams up with Can, a young local police officer chasing the same criminals from the other side of the law, and the two form an uneasy alliance built on urgency rather than trust. As Chen's concealed history resurfaces, his fight to bring his daughter home becomes tangled with old debts and older enemies, pushing the story toward a violent reckoning with a syndicate that has operated unchecked for years.
Cast & crew
Louis Fan Siu-Wong leads as Chen, bringing his long-standing action-cinema physicality to a role built around restraint before eruption. Andy On Chi-Kit plays Can, the policeman whose investigation intersects with Chen's private mission, while Eleanor Lee, Zhao Ziqi, Yu Kang, Jackson Liu, Zhang Di, and Bingo Zhou round out the ensemble on both sides of the conflict.
Context & significance
Director Ren Gaoliang sets the film's crime plot against the real anxieties of cross-border human trafficking, using the genre's action beats to frame a story about the cost of silence and the debts a hidden past can call in.
Where & how to watch
"To Live Through Death" streams with Persian dubbing on K-Time, presented in a Farsi-language interface built for the Iranian diaspora. Reading the page is free; watching the film requires logging into a K-Time account.