"Miracle Stupid Child" as one of my annual anticipated films, my attention to it has always been at the forefront of the Spring Festival slot.
Director Wen Muye and Yi Qianxi, such a combination is really difficult not to wonder what kind of spark they will collide with together.
After watching it, I must say that Miracle Stupid Kid didn't disappoint me.
Wen Muye once again brought an excellent work that is entertaining at the same time, but also full of presentation and reflection on social reality.
Even after the box office success of his "I Am Not a Medicine God", such social and entertaining domestic films are still scarce.
It's no exaggeration to say that although 2022 has just passed a month, Miracle Stupid Kid definitely has the potential to be among the top ten theatrical films this year.
The male protagonist Jing Hao, played by Yi Qianxi, was just in his early 20s, his mother died of congenital heart disease, his father left him and his sister disappeared, and the two brothers and sisters could only rely on each other since then.
What's worse is that her sister Jing Tong also inherited her mother's heart disease and had to complete the operation before the age of 8, while she is now six and a half years old.
"Miracle Stupid Child" tells the story of how Jing Hao paid for his sister's surgery in this year and a half.
Jing Hao first took all his savings to hoard a mountain of waste mobile phones, hoping to make a lot of money through renovation, did not think that he was encountering the national strike hard refurbishment machine, cottage machine, all the goods were smashed into his hands.
Relying on unimaginable sincerity, he got a contract from Boss Zhao, played by Zhang Zhijian, to dismantle all mobile phones into parts and recycle them by the manufacturer, but this contract not only did not have a deposit, but also required Jing Hao to remove the parts to pass more than 85%.
Therefore, Jing Hao, with the help of Lao Liang, played by Tian Yu, turned his "Haojing mobile phone repair" into "Haojing Electronics Factory" and recruited his own Haojing squad.
In almost all entrepreneurial inspirational movies, the protagonists have a big picture dream related to love or talent, and they either have extraordinary talents in some aspects or have an extremely keen sense of the changes in the world.
"Miracle Stupid Child" is completely different, including Jing Hao in the film, his entire entrepreneurial team is some ordinary people, even marginal people struggling at the bottom of society, they want to pursue not dreams, but simple and pure happiness.
Among them are Wang Chunmei (played by Qi Xi), a single mother who is seriously impaired by hearing due to a work injury, Zhang Longhao (played by Gong Lei), who was imprisoned for fighting for a worker, Liu Hengzhi (played by Wang Ning) and Zhang Chao (played by Xu Juncong), who can survive a day with 5 yuan, and Old Zhong, a veteran who has been injured on the battlefield.
The identity labels on each of them are extremely clear, and these labels have also formed a stereotype of the world, and many times we are accustomed to using these identity labels to one-sidedly summarize them.
In the film, Li Ping, the manager of the mobile phone company played by Wang Chuanjun, is like this.
Every time he met Jing Hao, he questioned Jing Hao's identity.
"It's not something you should think about as a phone fixer."
"It's not something you should think about at your age."
"No one in The country has done it."
"I've seen a lot of working boys like you."
And Jing Hao accurately replied to Li Ping every time.
"What does this have to do with my profession?"
"What does this have to do with my age?"
"If others don't do it, they don't do it?"
"Don't you also work?"
When Mr. Zhao asked Li Ping how old he was in Shenzhen, his first reaction was to answer "master's degree", in the eyes of this role, identity is more important than what kind of person he is.
In our lives, there has never been a shortage of people like Li Ping, but not all of them have the courage of Jing Hao to go back.
In "I Am Not a Medicine God", Wen Muye is very good at placing symbols, such as the most meaningful mask.
There are still many symbols in "Miracle Stupid Child", and the most impressive thing to me is the ant that appears many times.
This small but powerful creature corresponds to Jing Hao and others.
In the film, in order to get the contract, Jing Hao desperately rushed to catch the same high-speed rail as Zhao Zong, and in the process, the director also showed the urban ecology of the streets and alleys of Shenzhen.
The whole chase process was filmed with a lot of tension, using a considerable amount of scheduled footage, coupled with fast-paced editing, making people feel a sweat in their palms.
There are many bridges like this that are highly ornamental and entertaining, and even the process of dismantling the mobile phone, Wen Muye has used countless tricks to shoot it cool and good, so that the ornamentality of dismantling the mobile phone does not lose the bomb.
Although the film has a plot of forming squads, "I Am Not a Medicine God" is essentially quite different from "Miracle Stupid Child".
The protagonist of "I Am Not a Medicine God" has a strong character arc, and he slowly grows into a hero as the story develops.
"Miracle Stupid Child" is the opposite, Jing Hao is a character like Forrest Gump in "Forrest Gump", and the whole process is influencing the people around him with his unchanged personality charm.
So in essence, the underlying logic of the two films has a big difference, on the other hand, the life and death proposition of "Medicine God" is more tragic, and the entrepreneurial inspiration of "Miracle" is full of hope, which is more in line with the tone of the Spring Festival file.
Another of Wen Muye's strengths is the selection, tuning and control of actors, "Miracle Stupid Child" only looks at the list of actors, you will feel that these people have a variety of styles, but in the film, they are perfectly integrated and unified, and they come to a kind of performance rhythm.
My personal favorites are the following.
First, Jing Hao begged Lao Liang in the bathroom to help him become the director of the workshop, and Lao Liang gently flicked the foam on his finger into Jing Hao's face, and the two people immediately made me feel the warmth of not being a relative like a relative.
The second is that Wang Chunmei slapped back the little bastard, which is called a pleasure to see people, and the fire axe pulled out later is even more funny and wants to make people applaud.
There is also every scene of Zhang Yu, who does not appear much, especially the one that angrily scolds Jing Hao, which is really too wonderful, the rubber gloves thrown to Qianxi's face are slightly red, and Jing Hao's grievances are interpreted extremely well.
This is just the tip of the iceberg in the wonderful part of the whole film, "Miracle Stupid Child" can basically be said to be within the limitations of the subject matter, so that people can not pick out too much fault.
After watching it, I really can't believe that this is Wen Muye's second work, and the future of this young director is unlimited!
"Miracle Stupid Child" is an uplifting movie, a movie that allows people to see reality in it, it is undoubtedly critical, but at the same time it is also a film that believes in goodness, it believes in the mutual help between ordinary people, and believes that even if there is no blood relationship, we can find a family-like existence in the world.
More importantly, "Miracle Stupid Child" reminds us not to despise others because of their current identity, and not to despise ourselves because of our current situation.
Watching "Miracle Stupid Child" during the Spring Festival is like injecting a shot of tonic into the beginning of the new year!