In 2001, a humble cartoon was released in Hong Kong. The production team is only 12 people, small cost investment, no tall 3D special effects, no ups and downs of the plot, the protagonist is still a bloated, mediocre fat man...
More than ten days after its release, it received more than 10 million box office revenue, and finally the total box office exceeded 15 million yuan, far more popular than "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" and "Spirited Away" released at the same time.
This is the story of a pig that is as hot as Peppa Pig: The Story of McDougall
2001, Tai Kok Tsui, Kowloon, Hong Kong.
McDougal, is a six-year-old boy. He looks fat and stupid, and always does things half a beat slower than others.
In kindergarten, he was always distracted in class, couldn't hear the teacher's roll call, couldn't remember the lyrics when singing, and couldn't figure out where the goal was...
There were still some things that he couldn't understand when he broke his head: Why is orange called "rotten orange" in English and "rotten rotten" in English and "rotten rotten" in bananas? The umbrella is even more inexplicable, called "dark rotten"...
His biggest dream is to grow up fast, grow up, understand everything, make money, and buy a big house for his mother.
His mother, Mai Tai, is a single mother, in order to support her family, trained herself into a flexible fat man, every day to fight: go to work, pick up and drop off children, rush into the supermarket at the speed of light to sweep goods, use laser eyes to close the stock market, buy lottery, shoot cooking videos and pass it online to earn extra money...
McDougall said: My mother is super powerful, a woman carries the whole world.
Mai is not gentle, everything is simple and rude, go to the temple to ask for a signature for his son, and shake it until the "upper signature" appears, and then he is willing to give up.
She told the child bedtime stories like this: Once upon a time, a little friend lied, and the next day, he died. Once upon a time, there was a child who studied very hard, and when he grew up, he became rich.
Mai Du could not go to a prestigious school, and his kindergarten was very low, hidden in the deep water pass mixed with dragons and snakes and old buildings. The principal worries all day that the business will not go on, and always urges the students to pay the tuition.
The class teacher sings very well, dreaming of becoming Faye Wong the second, but a Ma Daha, every time the roll call will miss a few...
McDougall said: Maybe many people think that my kindergarten is stupid X, but my friends and I have indeed spent the best and happiest time here.
The 12-person "McDougall Story", which was released in Hong Kong in 2001, was a sensation.
It has not only won many awards such as the Golden Horse Award for Best Animated Feature Film and the Hong Kong Film Award for Best Original Film Music, but even in 2010, it was also named "Top Ten Films of the New Century Decade".
Douban scored 8.5, which has long been ranked in the Top 250 Douban Movies, but unfortunately, just last month, it was quietly squeezed out of this list.
When I heard the news, I was sad and wanted to write something about this movie. After all, on a night more than a decade ago, this movie made that young and young me laugh and move.
Some netizens said: I like Mai Du because his story is the story of the times, the story of Hong Kong, the story of the grassroots, and the story of each of us ordinary people.
There are many collective memories of Hong Kongers in the movie: the 7-11 convenience store everywhere on the street, the "Dragon Phoenix Restaurant" in the canteen of grandparents; the "De Guang Pledge" that can borrow money in ten minutes, and the "De Guang Bao" who is in a hurry; the rags and crowds of Mong Kok and Sham Shui Po, plastered with ads for rhinitis and hemorrhoids on both sides of the street; the guys dragging in the tea restaurant always order you to put your feet away and don't hinder him from mopping the floor; the crane under construction, the star-studded Victoria Harbour...
The appearance of Stephen Chow in "Shaolin Soccer"
Even Star Ye hit a soy sauce
Most of us, like McDougall, are ordinary looking, mediocre, often stupid, not very lucky, and have not even won five dollars to buy lottery tickets.
We tried to study hard and found that we could never become a bully, tried to work hard, and could not become a millionaire.
Like McDougall, we are loved by our families, hugging life hard and trying to live.
There is such a classic tea restaurant dialogue in the movie, and many people who have not seen the movie know:
McDougall: Trouble you, I want a bowl of fish balls thick noodles.
Dude: No rough noodles.
McDougal: Let's go fish ball pho.
Dude: No fish balls.
McDougal: Let's go to beef tripe thick noodles.
Little partner: McDougal, they don't have fish balls and thick noodles at home, you don't order these two.
McDougall nodded, "Oh, well, then I'm going to clean the fish balls."
Before watching this conversation, I only thought that McDougall was really silly and cute, but later I found out that this is a sad story.
Many of us, why not grow up in The McDougall? We always can't accept that some things, nothing is not, some people, one day will suddenly disappear.
We always have illusions, like McDouble, asking again and again: Is there really none? Or I'll wait...
The little stories of McDougall seem like fairy tales, but which one is not about a cruel and absurd reality?
The lottery that Matthew bought perfectly avoided every winning number.
Mai Du drank the whole bottle of cough potion hard, thinking that his mother would take him to the Maldives of his dreams, he did not know that poetry and distant places are often related to money, and trying to take medicine is useless.
Because he was too fat, McDougall could not become a windsurfer, he worked very hard to learn to grab Baoshan, but the truth is that this sport does not even have a venue, no matter how hard he tries, he will not win the Olympic gold medal.
The Christmas turkey bought under the blood, McDougall and his mother ate it for half a year, from full of joy to nausea to vomit.
One day they suddenly discovered that the chicken had been with us for longer days than it had lived after death.
It seems that all things cannot be completed: Hong Kong did not qualify for the Asian Games, Li Lishan did not win the championship of the windsurfing, the dear teachers and classmates in the kindergarten will always say goodbye, and the mother will one day take the first step...
The movie says: Growing up is a process of constantly hoping, disappointing, hoping, and disappointing again.
We slowly grew up, only to find that the original life is like this: stupid, not so funny, stupid will fail, will be disappointed, fat is not necessarily cute, fat is not necessarily strong, strong, not necessarily successful.
We always have so many regrets that we can't make up for, and some things, no, no, no.
And McDougall tells us: It's not a lack, it's that you're no longer in your dreams.
When we grow up, we have to rely on ourselves to solve problems, when we realize that compared with others, we have no handsome face, no smart head, no rich family lineage, no dazzling talent; when we realize the boring and complicated life, when we understand that the ordinary is the attribute of every ordinary person...
After all, we all have to learn to face this hard world alone, like McDougall.
Over the years, we have listened to too much success learning, and the circle of friends is always filled with a variety of chicken soup, as if the world, only to make money, better than others, to the peak of life, life is valuable.
Whenever this happens, I think of that little McDougall, the sometimes discouraged, sometimes dull, sometimes sensitive child.
He understands that every ordinary person in us is the real positive energy.