When the dog incarnates as a human and returns to its owner again, the fantasy warm story unfolds...
This is the beginning of the story of the pet-themed fantasy film "Goodbye Wang Xiansen" produced by Xi'an Film Studio, Emei Film Group and Beijing Qitai Culture. The film tells the touching story of the mutual companionship and protection between the "Wang Xingren" Jiang Mitiao, the chivalrous guest and the "master". The 12-year-old dachshund "Jiang Mi Tiao" stepped forward to help his owner Fang keep his love one by one, but he died unexpectedly due to excessive force. When he came to the Wang Xing World, the first thing he was asked to do was to forget his past life, but what could make "Jiang Mi Tiao" forget the happy times and bits and pieces with his master? What could make him forget his concern for his master? Therefore, he broke through many obstacles, returned to the human world through hardships, crossed the vast sea of people, accompanied Fang Yiyi in another way, and at the last moment of his life, he did his best to protect her, and wholeheartedly guarded the person he loved most with the gentleness of two lives and two lifetimes. The film perfectly interprets the protection and companionship that originates from love and transcends human emotions.
"Goodbye Wang Xiansen" with its transcendent love theme, virtual reality fantasy animal theme narrative, formed its unique artistic exploration between pet theme animation and animal theme ecological narrative reality film: both the profound philosophy of exploring love and companionship, and the happy and humorous secular human feelings; both the fascinating virtual reality plot conception that crossed over, and the indissoluble love affair with tears in laughter; both unforgettable love and solemnity of sacrificing family righteousness; both the red wall and green tiles of the ancient city of Xi'an. There is also an endless accumulation of hometown complexes...
Companionship stems from love: with love as the coordinate and "crossing" as the mechanism, build a perspective of equality between humans and animals
Since the end of the 20th century, animal themes have become a hot topic in the world film world. The number of films about animals has been increasing, with the appearance of "Gollum is a Cat" (2008), "My Family Bought a Zoo" (2011), "The Fantasy Drift of Pi" (2012), "Fantasy Forest" (2016), "Eagle Road" (2016), "Horse Oswin 2" (2015), "The Wilderness Hunter" (2015), "Animal Behavior" (2018), "Togo" (2019), "The Call of the Wild" (2020) and so on. Most of the themes of these works focus on the relationship between man and nature, man and animal, the impact of animals on human life, and the current situation of animals in modern society. With the gradual rise of the concept of pets, pet movies have also increased year by year in the Chinese film industry, and the focus angles are also different. "Happy Home" (2013), "My Boyfriend and Dog" (2015), "Faithful Love Without Words" (2017), "Whose Baby I Am" (2017) and other films, many of which are heart-warming masterpieces. "Carla is a Dog" (2003) won the Best Film Award at the 10th Beijing University Student Film Festival and was nominated for the Jury Prize at the 4th Chinese Film and Media Awards; "Who Am I Baby" was shortlisted at the 2nd Canadian Golden Maple International Film Festival; "Puppy Bottle" in 2019 is aimed at autistic children, explaining public welfare and warmth with animal themes; "Guide Dog Little Q" (2019) is adapted from the novel "Goodbye, Kolu", which has brought countless attention through the novels of 300 million readers. In a large number of pet movies, some pay attention to social phenomena and realistic topics, some highlight the relationship between people and pets, and some use animals as carriers to reflect the ethics of life. The animal images in these film narratives often take human experience and value judgments as coordinates, giving animals a personified (anthropomorphic) image construction, forming a narrative perspective of almost overlooking human beings. Although there are also many "Secret Zoos" (2020) "doing the opposite", in terms of form and content, the real people are "animals", but the film is still attributed to "human affairs" after all.
"Companionship is the longest confession of affection." Companionship gives people warmth and strength. The value of "Goodbye Wang Xiansen" lies in this. The mechanism of its plot structure lies in the unique handling strategy of the pet "Jiangmi Tiao" and "Chivalrous" crossing to position their relationship with the pianist Fang Yiyi and Yezi from the companionship of love. Here, Fang Yiyi's husband, a policeman, is busy with work and rarely accompanies her, and the "Jiang Mi Tiao" who accompanies her is like a family. The image of the pet is a caring, inseparable little cuteness; Leaf and her pet "Chick" are more like a pair of good partners who share hardships, and the dog "Chick" is a big warm man whom the girl calls her boyfriend, and is her only comfort in this cold city. The former desperately sacrificed his life to help Fang Yiyi when he was lonely and helpless; the latter gave warmth and helped when Ye Zi's career was frustrated and depressed... After the crossing, the "Jiangmi Tiao" was cleverly transformed into a meticulous courier brother, and the "chivalrous guest" was transformed into a warm big brother, and it was precisely because of this ingenious design that the relationship between the two dogs and Fang Yiyi and Yezi was both the relationship between the pet and the owner, and the relationship between people, the actors Zhang Guoqiang and Xiao Zimo, with their profound performance skills, cleverly switched identities freely between people and dogs, and successfully realized the tacit understanding and communication built by the director with "love" between different species.
Guardianship, Beyond Love: With "humanized" dogs, beyond the barriers set by the plot of the same genre, and spread the theme of love to the fullest
The most touching thing about works of art is that they touch the softest hearts of people, and pet-themed films often hit the hearts of the audience through this path. When it comes to pets, many people will invariably think of "Hachiko the Loyal Dog", the film is about a university professor who adopts a small Akita dog and takes the name "Hachiko". Every day after that, Hachiko sent the professor to the station in the morning and waited for the professor to go home with him in the evening. Unfortunately, the professor died of illness and never returned to the station, and Hachiko remained on time at 5 p.m. every day until his final death. Here "waiting" has become a sign of the most loyal love that pets give to people. "A Dog's Mission" (2017) tells the story of a dog Bailey who has been reborn many times, looking for different missions in the cycle of life, and finally returning to the original owner. The film is more of a reference and metaphor, creatively traveling through time and space from the perspective of "the same dog", witnessing different real lives in decades, the four reincarnations of the dog and the four seasons of the owner's life, the only unchanging main line is love. The valuable thing about "Goodbye Wang Xiansen" is that the film not only explains love, the reincarnation of dogs is not only a testimony to people's lives and lives, but more importantly, it is a participation in people's lives and a guardianship beyond love.
The most captivating thing in "Goodbye Wang Xiansen" is that its plot is deep in the subtleties, emotionalizing the behavior of the pet, and transforming the emotional plot into a direct attack on the heart, thus constructing the relationship between people and pets in the film. "Jiang Mi Tiao" and Fang Yiyi, "Chivalrous" and Ye Zi, guard each other, rely on each other, laugh together, and grow together. Whether it is a "past life" or a "present life", the beautiful life of harmonious coexistence between people and dogs not only conveys mutual trust between each other and the emotional comfort of relying on each other, but also conveys a kind of protection from dogs. In reflecting the relationship between man and others, we strive to explore the spiritual value and emotional sustenance that transcend species.
Why have films about people and pets, people and animals received more and more attention and love in recent years? Some people believe that in the current fast-paced social life, film and television art has become the most convenient medium for people to feel warmth. The reason why the healing emotion of pet movies is so popular is that it can make people withdraw in the jungle of reinforced concrete, in the workplace full of jungle laws, calm down to feel a different emotional experience, and have the power to heal people's hearts. Therefore, the premiere of "Goodbye Wang Xiansen" intimately arranged a special scene with pets and brought his own dogs to watch the movie. The feelings of mutual protection and companionship between "Wang Xingren" and "Shoveler" poke at the hearts of many people. It also triggered the author's "whimsical ideas", or even questioned and wavered the concept of animals as "pets": in the mutual attachment between humans and pets, who is who's pet? Does using Wang Wang and Meow as a pet just reflect an unequal perspective? This feeling of seemingly being "pet" implies a condescending love, and in fact, when we dissect a series of films about people and animals, people and pets, do we feel that, in a way, these seemingly spoiled animals are essentially our spiritual, emotional, and loving dependence and sustenance. Whether it is the "Jiang Mi Tiao" in "Goodbye Wang Xiansen" to protect and even protect each other one by one, or the loyalty completed with life in "Loyal Dog Hachigong", whether it is the suffering and common suffering of "Chivalrous" and Ye Zi in "Goodbye Wang Xiansen", or the "Fantasy Drifting of the Young Pi" in which the Young Pi and the Bengal Tiger have regained their lives through all kinds of difficulties.
It is worth mentioning that unlike the protection of animals by humans in previous films of similar themes, the protection in "Goodbye Wang Xiansen" comes more from animals to people. Whether it is the plot rendering of "Jiang Mi Tiao" enduring the pain for Fang Yiyi to take medicine one by one, or the emotional description of the audience after watching the movie: "Touched by the memories of ye zi and chivalrous in the film, the 'chivalrous' obviously knows that the beloved master is in front of him but cannot recognize each other, because it does not want the master to bear another parting, and it turns out that love is not possession, but restraint." When standing on the same level to compare humans and animals, the dog's thinking coordinates present human logic, and the dog's "irrational" behavior is precisely the innocence that the so-called "rational" person wants to do but cannot do, dare not do, cannot do... The dislocation and isomorphism of dogs and people completes the theme of love in the film, and also transcends the barriers in the general film plot setting. I have to praise "Goodbye Wang Xiansen" because of the "humanized" dog, so that the director's creation and narrative are like a fish, spread out to the fullest, across the screen can feel the director's creative process of the performance process.
Eternity, all because of great love: to capture people's hearts with "great love", to break through the boundaries of audience types with all-age, and to achieve the fit of social value, artistic pursuit and market value
In the past, animal-themed films always had a certain audience composition and focused target group positioning. Even similar to cartoons, there is a lot to form an animal-themed film that is the stereotype of children's films. Although at present, many domestic animation film-watching groups have a composition form of "parent-child movie-based and young audiences are incremental", the differentiated positioning is still the bottleneck of its development. On this issue, "Goodbye Wang Xiansen" has made more efforts and attempts. The all-age, undifferentiated audience positioning not only achieves the value pursuit of the film, but also lays the foundation for the film to realize its social value, artistic value and market value.
Eternity is due to great love. The film takes love as the theme, surpasses the single overhead view of human beings on pets of similar themes in the past, and witnesses the love and warmth between humans and pets. Combining whimsical fantasy elements with warm and touching family stories, through the portrayal of distinct character details and the interpretation of fantasy comedy, it strives to show the sincere feelings between people, pets and relatives, and conveys to the audience that love and companionship are the source of love in a happy life. Successfully evoking the audience, but also evoking the love of the actors, the halo effect emitted by this love makes people cherish people and nature, people and animals, and the harmonious coexistence, companionship and protection of people. In the screening process and post-film communication session of the premiere, the audience and actors were filled with an atmosphere of love everywhere. For the film, for the characters full of love, touching the heart, let the laughter and tears coexist. Art is infected, all is love.
At the same time, it is worth mentioning that what lingers outside the play is the love for a city and the love for the hometown. The film is written and directed by Shaanxi director Wang Dazhi, so it is natural to set the background of the story in Xi'an, an ancient and modern city, and the film is full of the director's love for his hometown. Filmed in Xi'an throughout the film, the film intuitively presents the vivid and vibrant international urban life to the audience: the landmark buildings of the ancient capital such as the Big Wild Goose Pagoda, the Ming City Wall, Shuncheng Lane, and the Xiaonanmen, which shine with modern urban life, depicting a city with rich cultural significance of the collision of tradition and fashion; street vendors in the morning market, square dancing "big mothers" in the ring park, literary and artistic youths and skateboard teenagers playing guitars on the north square of the Big Wild Goose Pagoda... Each of the vivid characters in the film outlines a trivial and enthusiastic secular life, forming a picture of vibrant urban life. The theme of love in the film is deeply engraved in the simple, happy and enterprising life of modern Xi'an people.
Variations of Love and Beauty: Discussing the Artistic Aesthetic Pursuit and Innovation of Animal-themed Films
A successful film always combines theme and art perfectly. If, ever since people moved the camera lens from the surrounding human life and human emotions to another kind of life, animals, it is destined to expand a broader field for human love, and at the same time, it has also opened up another broad horizon for artistic aesthetics. With its unique charm, animal-themed films show the relationship between humans and animals, attracting people to return to the basics and explore the innocence, kindness and beauty of art and life. Just like "Goodbye Wang Xiansen" constructs and interprets the relationship between humans and animals in real society. Among them, there is no shortage of artistic pursuit of love and beauty. The emotional impact brought about by the inextricable connection between pets and people connected by the core of love and the pursuit of beauty has become the most touching core of this type of film, and this appeal and impact is irreplaceable by other types of films.
Artistic innovation is the decisive factor in the achievement of films, and in the current number of animal-themed films, it is easy to stand out and stand out. It is worth affirming that the innovative attempt made by "Goodbye Wang Xiansen" at this point has undoubtedly become the foundation of the film, and has also become a remarkable achievement for the creative team. Different from the anthropomorphic design of animals in previous animal movies (especially animated animal films), "Goodbye Wang Xiansen" directly and boldly incarnates animals directly into humans in the form of crossing, so the virtuality and fantasy in the story setting successfully transforms the emotions of people and animals into the emotions of people and people. However, because of the crossing, this kind of emotional display between people can transcend the "barriers" of reality to achieve the impossible in reality, making the film more enjoyable. Among them, the plot setting of "Jiang Mi Tiao" incarnated as a courier brother after the aphasia, not only did not affect the plot development and emotional communication, but also more truly showed the spiritual communication of the human dog, and also provided the actor with the opportunity to show the tension of the role, from this point of view, the two actors of the dog are undoubtedly excellent. And this ingenious setting of directly transforming the relationship between people and pets into the relationship between people and people makes the film perfectly transcend the age positioning of the audience, making children who love animals, young people in love, middle-aged and elderly people thinking about life... All are aggregated because of pets and become their potential audiences.
Finally, it is worth mentioning that the theme song of "Goodbye Wang Xiansen" "You Are Happy I Am Happy" is the highlight and sublimation of the whole play, and the lyrics are catchy, "Sing a song you like, accompany you to be happy" "Touch your head again without fear, I will accompany you." This is the affectionate confession of the "Wang Xingren" to the master, and it is not the lover's confession to the lover's heart: whether you are happy or sad, I have always accompanied you! In this regard, the film perfectly interprets the film's thinking on love, emotion, life, and the value of "dog life". (Author: Yang Lin, Professor and PhD Supervisor, School of Journalism and New Media, Xi'an Jiaotong University)
<h1 toutiao-origin="h4" > Editor: Gao Sijia</h1>