The film "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" (The Unbearable Lightness of Being), released in 1988, was directed and written by the famous American filmmaker Philip Kaufman (Philip Kaufman), and the original author Milan Kundera also participated in the screenwriting work.

Love in Prague Poster

The film tells the love entanglement between Thomas, a Prague surgeon, and two women, Sabina, a painter, and Teresa, a waitress, with the "Prague Spring" in 1968 as the background of the film.

The cast of this film can be described as a strong lineup. Thomas is played by the British actor Daniel Day-Lewis (Daniel Day-Lewis), who is the first British actor to win three best actor awards in Oscar history. Binoche (Juliette Binoche), Sabina is played by Swedish actress Lena Olin.

"Love in Prague" stills

The film was one of the ten best films in the United States in 1988. It was nominated for Best Cinematography and Best Adapted Screenplay at the Oscars in 1989, nominated for Best Drama and Best Supporting Actress (Lena Olin) at the Golden Globe Awards, and was nominated for the British Film Awards. Motion Picture and Television Association Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, American Society of Film Critics Awards for Best Director and Best Picture.

"Love in Prague" was just the title of the film when it was introduced to Hong Kong and Taiwan. In fact, the title of the film comes from Kundera's novel "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" (L'Insoutenable Légèreté de l'être), which was first published in 1984.

The novel involves quite a lot of philosophical concepts, thinking about categories such as regression, kitsch, oblivion, time, chance and necessity. The "New York Times" once commented on this book-Milan Kundera established his status as the world's greatest living writer with this book.

"The Unbearable Lightness of Being", published in 1987, translated by Han Shaogong and Han Gang

Similar to the many different translations of the movie title in the Chinese-speaking world, the Chinese translation of the book is also "A Hundred Flowers Blooming". At first, it was translated by Han Shaogong and his sister Han Gang as "The Unbearable Lightness of Life", and later translated by the Taiwanese version as "Life "The Unbearable Lightness of Being", Shanghai Translation Publishing House published in 2003 a version translated by Professor Xu Jun of Nanjing University based on the French version.

The latest edition of "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" in 2022

Due to the popularity of both the novel and its adapted film, "Prague" and "The Unbearable ... of ..." have become common vocabulary or sentence patterns in popular culture in various countries. For example, there is a song called "Prague Love" in the album "Twins Party" released by Twins in 2007, and the movie "The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent" starring Nicolas Cage, Korean movie "The Unbearable Lightness of Love" (연애, 그참을수없는가벼움) starring Kim Seung-woo and Jang Jin-young.