Why is it that the domestic animation we see on the big screen is not a mythological figure represented by the Fengshen of the Journey to the West, or an upright animal for various relative sub-directions?
Because it is a household name, has its own traffic, strong entertainment attributes, low viewing threshold, and easy to earn box office, not many manufacturers are willing to touch those thankless and unpopular areas, resulting in the animation theme focusing on real life almost disappearing on the big screen.
In other words, to make a realistic style of national comics, I have to bear a much greater risk of losing money, and this boldness alone is enough to make me interested in a national comic and go to see the point of view.
It is "Lion Boy", Douban just opened a score, 8.3 points.
How realistic is this animation?
Character realism, scene realism, plot realism, kernel realism, even Easter eggs are realistic.
Completely freed from the shackles of traditional mythology, the perspective returns to the most real life, placed on the lowest rural young people in southern China, who have no money, no appearance, no background and no superpowers, that is, a group of ordinary ordinary people who can no longer be ordinary.
The story line of "Lion Boy" can be summarized in two sentences: three low-looking left-behind teenagers participated in the lion dance competition under the training and leadership of the retired lion king, and finally proved their life value through the competition.
In short: an inspirational story of "salted fish turning over".
This kind of story is more cheesy, it is not new, but the use of elements is ingenious, and the social "left-behind" and the national tide "lion dance" are skillfully combined, which not only makes people laugh and laugh, but also makes people feel empathy and shock their hearts.
The male protagonist is called Ah Juan, his parents are working in Guangzhou, and he and his grandfather stay in the countryside, his appearance is not proud, his bones are as thin as wood, he is not tall, he is often bullied by the village bully of the lion dance team, and he is ridiculed as a sick cat.
Because Ah Juan watched a lot of lion dances in the company of her parents in her childhood, she has longed for and yearned for the gorgeous and flexible folk art of lion dance since she was a child, and when he was 18 years old, the day when the village held a lion dance to grab the youth, she witnessed the domineering village bully being played by a mysterious person with exquisite skills.
This mysterious person is a lion dance master, the interesting thing is that the name is also set to Ah Juan, to say why the two have the same name, I personally understand that it is not casual, it should contain the careful design and other intentions of the creator.
Male Ajuan is sloppy on the outside, depressed in spirit, inferior in heart, representing a waste firewood and salted fish that is despised by people, and female Ajuan is bright and beautiful, confident and open- and has the strength to defeat the village bully.
She may be the projection of the male Ajuan's heart, the one he aspires to be in the future, and the female Ajuan does not have much role in the whole film, but more of a guiding role, so I think she may just be an image.
In fact, I thought she was the heroine at first, but after going deep into the plot, I learned that the most full and three-dimensional female character portrayed in the whole film is Azhen, the wife of the retired lion king Xianyuqiang, that is, the master and mother of the junior lion dance team.
The main creator spent a lot of ink to portray the emotional line of Ah Zhen and Ah Qiang, and she can be said to be the reassuring pill for the junior lion dance team to embark on the road of chasing their dreams.
The motivation of the three people to participate in the lion dance competition will make people feel incredible, the male protagonist is to go to Guangzhou to meet the parents who work, the cat is to meet the beautiful female Juan, and the dog is to eat and wrap.
Therefore, the so-called dream of this animation is not an awe-inspiring feat, but the most real physiological impulse and the most urgent emotional desire of the little people at the bottom.
It's just that because the male protagonist likes lion dances from childhood to adulthood, the lion dance has become the only way to see the salted fish turn over in his ordinary life.
"Lion Boy" should be China's first theatrical animation film that promotes the culture of lion dance, and the beginning of the film uses an ink painting form to briefly introduce the history of lion dance, and the opening is full of Chinese style.
Lion dance as a long-standing entertainment art, there is a distinction between the north and the south, this film tells about the southern lion culture, the southern lion is also known as the awakening lion, mainly represented by Guangdong, is the first batch of national intangible cultural heritage.
Friends in the north may not have such a strong awareness of lion dance, but as a native of Guangdong, I can clearly say that countless Cantonese people have heard about this cultural essence from childhood to adulthood, especially many rural children have learned to dance lions from childhood to learn to beat gongs and drums, and this culture has been passed down from generation to generation and flourished.
If friends from the north come to Guangdong to live for a period of time, they can find that whenever a new industry is opened, festivals are held, and lights are displayed, there will almost always be a lion dance team in Guangdong.
The lion dance culture is said to be a ritual with the meaning of driving away evil spirits and avoiding harm, and to a large extent, it is said that overseas Chinese promote the prestige of the nation and recognize the ancestors and return to the ancestors.
I believe that many people have seen "Huang Feihong 3: Lion King Battle" directed by Xu Ke and starring Jet Li in 1992, which should be the most well-known commercial film with the theme of lion dance.
I checked the main creative team of this "Lion Boy", the original screenwriter is from Foshan, and Foshan is the hometown of lion art, is the birthplace of the southern lion, the film's lion dance elements are so full, the details are so elaborate, a look at it to know that there is an in-depth study of the lion dance culture.
It is said that the main creator deeply collected the wind in Guangzhou and Foshan, and it is no wonder that the street scene modeling in the film is almost a one-to-one restoration of the southern water and soil countryside.
The blue sky, the muddy road, the familiar food stalls, the light and shadow effects are exquisitely crafted, beautiful and full of fireworks.
Caused me to blur at one point during the movie that this is a virtual animation or a live-action movie?
In particular, the delicate lion's head flutters with the wind under the sway of people, and the domineering and cute temperament of the southern lion's head is modeled beautifully, reaching a delicate degree of fake truth.
The combination of music in this film is a big plus, using a lot of music that is just right to make the DNA of young people in the south flutter.
For example, the "Daoshan Liangzai" of the first five people, such as the middle Cantonese song "The World Is Always Hello", and for example, the end of the film Jiulian Zhenren "Mo Cheating Young Poor", I said that I was still listening to the Hakka song for the first time, I did not expect to be so emotional.
The dubbing dialogue is a mixture of Mandarin, Cantonese and Hokkien, and the funny effects brought by multiple dialects make people can't help but be funny.
In addition, "Lion Boy" has many plots that pay tribute to Stephen Chow movies, especially "Shaolin Football".
After master Xianyu forcibly trained with the three devils for a period of time, he organized a competition with another lion dance team for the three of them, which instantly reminded me of the passage of "Shaolin Football" when Feng Ge led the Shaolin team to the first game.
So it's no exaggeration to say that this is an animation that makes Southern audiences empathize, feel intimate, and evoke memories.
However, the animation has caused a lot of controversy because the appearance modeling of several protagonists does not conform to the mainstream aesthetic, and I personally feel that the trailer has to carry some pots, because I am basically not distracted by eye problems when watching the main film.
There is a saying that the protagonist group that is not big eyes is indeed not beautiful, but the whole film is really ugly, I think only that cat, in fact, the creator obviously intends to model it as funny as a monkey (eating bananas), and the film emphasizes his ugly appearance twice.
As for the dog in charge of drumming, I just think he is very thick and loves to eat.
Looking at it this way, the character lineup of "The Lion Boy" is still quite "Journey to the West", the male protagonist is a Tang monk, A cat is a great sage, a dog is the Eight Precepts, the opening female Ah Juan wearing a white blouse is Guanyin Bodhisattva, and the male protagonist also appears in the movie complaining in front of the Buddha statue, which seems to prove that the creator intends to move closer to the West, of course, the above is purely a personal over-interpretation.
Although the male protagonist Ah Juan was fatal in the early stage, after leaving the countryside to work outside in the middle and late stages, he cut a refreshing inch, and the spirit of spirit was immediately promoted.
In fact, there is no need to go to the middle and late stages, as long as the male protagonist has a set of lion's head, the temperament of the whole person will change 180 °, from being depressed to being cool and handsome, from low and lost to being wild and agile, and the eyes will no longer see the slightest inferiority, and some are just endless sharpness and the desire for victory.
A set of lion's head made me feel like a transformation, he was no longer a muddy salted fish, but an imposing shark, no longer a sick cat to be bullied, but a majestic male lion.
It is worth mentioning that this animation is too crisp and sharp in terms of action design.
A series of actions such as horse steps when dancing, such as upper shoulder, upper pole, jumping, and climbing piles, are both beautiful and fast, with big ups and downs, big opening and closing, steady but not chaotic, fierce but not urgent.
In particular, the male protagonist made a gorgeous debut at the critical juncture of the competition, turned the tide through the exquisite skills of hard training, and with the rhythmic drumming BGM, the climax and emotional points of the whole film were detonated like a mountain and a tsunami at that moment, which made me surging with blood and exhaling.
If "The Lion Boy" only stops at the point where the audience looks at it and laughs, then it is at best a popcorn for family fun.
What really moved me about this film was the in-depth explanation of the social issue of "left behind", and extended the practical significance and depth of thought that brought emotional resonance.
The male protagonist's dream is to achieve his charm and value through the lion dance, and his original intention is to let the parents who work hard to make money outside know that they are great and do not have to worry about their parents.
However, the cruel thing is that the lion dance can not solve the problem of eating, can not bring benefits, a sharp poke in the "ideal is very sexy, reality is very bone", an ordinary person on the road to chase dreams can never avoid the pain point.
The film uses the line of salted fish to support it.
Salty Fish Qiang was the king of the lion dance world when he was young, which attracted Ah Zhen's admiration, but because of economic reasons, he could only become a mediocre salted fish vendor in the end.
The 18-year-old male protagonist Ah Juan also encountered this cruel dilemma, and an ordinary teenager from the countryside could not resist such a fate.
He didn't even have the opportunity to play with reality, he could only shed tears and take on heavy responsibilities with his weak body, and the look of struggling saw people feel pain and sigh for it.
Therefore, the rhythm of the film is relaxed and lively in the early stage, funny and even a little nonsensical, but in the middle and late stages, it gradually unveils the most real side of society, allowing the audience to put aside impetuosity and calm down and think.
Why are dreams so precious?
Don't ordinary people deserve the opportunity to get ahead?
From beginning to end, "The Lion Boy" strives to convey the concept that those who hold dreams, their persistence and persistence, must be worthy of recognition.
As long as you are willing to fight, the sick cat still has the possibility of transforming into a male lion, and it can also have a highlight moment of roaring and roaring proudly in the sky under the attention of all, and the end of the film completes the closed loop of the character arc through such spiritual sublimation.
However, just when I thought that the whole film was intended to end here, the Easter egg pulled my soaring thoughts back to reality, and calmed my dying heart to the ground.
The creators of this film feel very rational and restrained, even if they allow exaggerated animation art, they also try their best to control within the logic of realism, it is rare that there is no false space, so that it is not vain and not chaotic.
As I said at the beginning, this is a realistic to the extreme realistic theme animation, close to life, everywhere is the true reflection of the real world, but also tenderly encourage the audience, to have the courage to chase dreams, dreams and reality are not bound to conflict, there must be a balance that can take care of reality, but also make dreams shine.
On the one hand, "Lion Boy" uses a funny and bloody way to show the charm of traditional lion dance culture to the fullest, on the other hand, it uses a sensual and romantic way to heal the workers who are almost extinguished in social work and can almost extinguish the fire of their dreams.
The most eloquent and tearful form is used to convey the most universal spiritual core and values.
As a line in the film says:
"As long as the drums can still sound in the heart, we are lions."