Dying to Survive

Dying to Survive is a 2018 Chinese comedy-drama film directed by Wen Muye in his feature film debut. The film is based on the real-life story of Lu Yong (陆勇), a Chinese leukemia patient who smuggled cheap and generic cancer medicine from India for 1,000 Chinese cancer sufferers in 2004. Dying to Survive stars Xu Zheng in the lead role, who also co-produced the film with Ning Hao. Plot An aphrodisiac peddler, Cheng Yong, is in financial trouble. His store has not been making profits for a long time and his father urgently needs a large sum of money for brain surgery. One day a man wearing thick layers of surgical masks comes to his shop. He asks Cheng to bring a cheap drug from India in return for a large sum of money. Due to patent protection, the Swiss drug imatinib is very expensive and cannot be afforded by most leukemia patients in China. However, an inexpensive generic version of it is available in India. Desperate for money, Cheng agrees to risk smuggling the drug into China. As more chronic myelogenous leukemia patients start to buy drugs from him, Cheng becomes rich. His motivation starts to change after he witnesses devastated patients whose families had been pushed into poverty by costly cancer treatments walk away with hope for the future.