The famous Japanese director is Hirokazu Kore-eda's new work.
He cooperated with Netflix and filmed a manga Japanese drama.
Content is also the everyday life that he is best at.
Remember that eye-catching "Sea Street Diary" no.
This new drama can be said to be another reproduction.
It also gathers Japanese high-value actresses, which can be called the annual beauty ceiling.
There are goddesses of the older generation, Takako Tokiwa and Keiko Matsuzaka.
The goddess of the new generation, Ai Hashimoto, Moyu Matsuoka, and Momoko Fukuchi.
There are also younger post-00s actors, Sen Nana, Export Natsuki.
Douban score 8.1, good reputation.
However, it has also generated a lot of controversy.
Many viewers left comments such as "irony", "glorification of child sexual exploitation" and "dregs".
What kind of content can have such a big gap?
Today, let's talk about it -
《Maiki family chef》
Maiko Sanchi no Makanai
Let's start with the controversial word "prostitute."
In the original Japanese text, it is written "maiko".
And Chinese name translates to "maiki".
After all, the word "prostitute" in modern Chinese is easily associated with sex workers.
It is written as "trick", which is also to avoid it.
However, the Japanese word for "prostitute" retains the ancient Chinese usage, which can refer to both sex workers and female performers.
The Japanese word for "trick" traditionally refers to male performers.
For example, Kabuki.
It and maiko are completely two concepts.
Kabuki is a theatrical performing art.
The performers are all male.
Somewhat similar to the status of Peking Opera in China, kabuki is Japan's most representative traditional art.
Tamasaburo Banto, a national treasure kabuki actor, known as Japan's "Umelan-yoshi"
Therefore, in order to maintain the original taste, Uncle Yu also follows the original Japanese writing here.
So, what exactly does maiko mean?
Everyone must know something about geisha.
A blockbuster film of that year, "Memoirs of a Geisha", shows us the life and work of geisha.
Geisha are female entertainers who perform at banquets in Japan.
In addition to serving meals to guests, the main job is to enliven the atmosphere of the banquet through dance, music, musical instruments and other performances.
Maiko, on the other hand, is the name of a geisha during the apprenticeship stage.
Since geisha has become a cultural symbol in Japan in contemporary times.
Although the original purpose of his work was to serve wine and feast.
But its unique and pleasing performing arts culture has been curious and loved by the world.
Yasunari Kawabata's masterpiece "The Dancing Girl of Izu" that has been put on the screen several times
In today's Kyoto, it is common to see the beautiful shadows of geisha or maiko on the quaint streets.
People can't help but stop and admire.
Delicate makeup, gorgeous costumes, people are sought after everywhere they go.
Nowadays, geisha/maiko is a profession that many girls aspire to.
The drama "The Chef of the Maiko House" tells the story of two good friends who have grown up together since childhood and strive to become excellent maiko.
Jiyo (Nana Mori) and Pansy (Natsuki Export) leave their hometown together after graduating from junior high school.
Head to a Kyoto house-ata (dormitory for maiko and apprentices) as a maiko apprentice.
Pansy is very serious about studying because she loves this profession.
She is very talented and is called a "once-in-a-century" maiko genius by her master.
Ji Dai is the opposite.
She couldn't understand the subtleties of maiko at all, and she stumbled with learning.
The flower arrangement is a mess, the dance can't step on the beat, and even the most basic greetings are not in place.
Only a few days after coming, Ji Dai was almost sent home.
Fortunately, she has a great passion and talent in cooking.
You can continue to be a cook with Pansy.
So, the two began to support each other here, going down different dream paths.
This is a typical Japanese small fresh drama.
It has the usual picture sense of Hirokazu Kore-eda's works:
Clean, gentle and healing.
A large number of fixed shots are used in the play.
Whether it's a maiko girl singing and dancing, or a clear river flowing with light,
Whether it's the chirping of seasonal chopping vegetables or the dance of pansies.
It's like a framed painting, and it's like a photo recorded by a camera.
The plot is not complicated, but mainly shows the daily life of the maiko.
In addition to the display of maiko performance culture, there are also a large number of cooking scenes.
A bubbling parent-child bowl in a pot.
When Pansy was sick, a bowl of oily tofu udon under Jidai.
After rehearsals, the girls sat around and drank hot pork miso soup.
These foods are not delicate high-end dishes, they are ordinary and homely.
But it connects the fragments of girls' lives, carrying their emotions and memories.
The New Year is coming.
The girls who have been homesick for a long time finally have a holiday to go home and see.
However, after returning to Kyoto, I missed everything at home even more.
Just one glance at the specialties of your hometown will make you cry.
In Japan, it is a custom to eat mochi for the New Year.
However, eating varies from region to region.
In order to comfort the homesick girl, Ji Dai specially made hometown-style rice cakes for her.
Kanto wind exclusively for Miss Kotono
The tastiest, often the most mundane food.
The most touching and often the most ordinary feelings.
Under the warm yellow light, girls from all over the world sat in a small room, eating hot rice cakes and discussing the trivial matters of life.
Warm, clean, nice feeling, directly overflowing the screen.
In addition to the food, the most attractive thing in this show is the colorful female characters.
What Kore-eda is best at is showing the character through details.
The protagonist needless to say.
Ji Dai is simple and enthusiastic, will say hello to food, and will also talk to Omei.
Although Pansy looks gentle and weak, she will also complain unceremoniously in the face of her father who wants to take her away.
There are also Hyako who have become geisha, and their words and deeds all reveal the coldness and elegance of being a leading geisha.
But as soon as she took off her work outfit, she transformed into an ordinary girl.
Loves games, loves horror movies, and even has some tsundere.
He said that he didn't believe in gods and Buddhas, but when he encountered emotional problems, he couldn't help but worship.
Even if it is only a few characters who appear occasionally, they are still alive.
Although the three girls who became maiko always got together with the same hairstyle, they did not make people stupid and confused.
Many characters sometimes just appear in someone else's lines.
But with just a few clips, you can clearly outline the unique temperament of different characters.
In terms of emotional expression, this play is also the same attitude of Hirokazu Kore-eda's previous works - forbearance and restraint.
The sixth episode is a story about "unrequited love".
Yagata's previous owner's mother, a famous kabuki actor, once the object of unrequited love, came here to perform again after many years.
After the show, the actor came to his mother's bar for a drink, and the two met for the first time after a gap of sixty years.
It should have been a focused encounter scene.
but divided the picture to two "unrelated people".
The chatter of others is mixed with the nonchalant conversation between the mother and the actor.
In the end, it was a reminder from the people around him, and everyone left the table with wit.
But even if there were only two people left in the entire bar, they were still very reserved.
For this relationship sixty years ago, just a few daily trivial conversations.
It's a wonderful feeling, a feeling of taking something lightly because you cherish it too much, and the afterglow is long.
If we had met earlier, I might have been with you.
Isn't your wife your elementary school classmate?
I need to meet you in kindergarten.
Yes.
Overall, this drama is a high-quality work both in terms of production and narrative.
Therefore, it has indeed been loved by many people.
However, this drama also has a lot of controversy in addition to the content of the work.
Because the maiko industry is far less beautiful than it is shown in the play.
Becoming a maiko is a very, very hard process.
This kind of hard work is not only in the long period of technical learning and exercise, but also in various old-fashioned rules.
The maiko's exclusive hairstyle is called "Momokai", which is beautiful and heavy.
Because it's also a status symbol.
After the hairstyle is combed, it cannot be removed for five days.
In order to keep things tidy, maiko sleep on wooden pillows that are very unergonomic every night.
During this period, maiko are not allowed to enter convenience stores, use mobile phones, apply nail polish, etc.
Marriage, on the other hand, marks the end of a career.
In order to maintain the purity and mystery of this image, married maiki/geisha must withdraw from the industry.
Everything that would break people's illusions about classical beauty is forbidden.
In addition, there is a strict hierarchy in this industry.
Apprentices and maiko cannot walk through the same door.
Apprentices have to take on all the household chores of geisha, and work hard.
Being exploited and bullied is commonplace.
However, all this irrationality of imprisoning women in the name of beauty is weakened or even eliminated in the laughter and healing among girls in the play.
In addition, in real life, not all maiko/geisha industries can be separated from the sex industry.
When you encounter an irregular store, you will inevitably be forced to cross the line.
In June last year, a former maiko girl took to Twitter to expose the dark inside story of the industry.
At the age of 16, she was forced to drink alcohol, get drunk and be forced to bathe with guests.
Sexual harassment has become the norm.
She herself was almost forced to sell her "first night" for 50 million yen (about 2.6 million yuan).
Every year, people who studied with her attempted suicide.
When I was a university student, I worked in a tea house in Kyoto, and I used traditional culture as a reason not to be bound by the law, and let minors (15-17 years old) work late into the night, which was actually a nightclub. When I tweeted that it was dangerous, I was immediately identified and asked to write a written pledge not to write anything on social media in the future, and I was fired the same day.
It is hard to imagine that this is a profession that is basically made up of underage girls.
Sadly, the show almost erases the other side of the industry.
In the play, Pansy's father can't see his 16-year-old daughter leaving the family hospital to inherit, but runs to learn how to "serve Israel" and wants to take her home.
After all, it's very problematic to let young girls pour wine
Drunk guests will touch the hands of the girls next to them
Facing a father's worries.
The mothers of Yagata vowed to "protect the girl".
Refusing to be a guest means not allowing that kind of guest to come into the place
It is also to protect maiko
But in fact, there are many scenes of maiko playing and laughing with male customers at banquets.
Although, as my mother said, there is nothing wrong with it, it is all courtesy.
But these girls, after all, are not yet 18 years old.
What Kore-eda is best at is focusing on marginalized groups who wander the moral gray area.
He uses a plain and gentle narrative to tell about unusual moral conflicts.
"Nobody Knows" is, so is "Like a Father Like a Son", and even more so "Thief Family".
That's one of the reasons people like him.
This time, he focuses the camera on the maikos, which also implies a lot of moral conflict.
As a traditional Japanese industry that has undergone complex historical changes, maiko / geisha has a unique cultural charm and irrational industry rules.
At the same time, it is also misunderstood and incomprehensible by many people.
For example, many people often confuse Japanese nomads with geisha.
The wandering girl in "Flower Queen"
And "Maiko's Cook" clearly wants to justify the profession of maiko.
Not only does it avoid all the irrational dark side of the industry.
There is also an ambition to revitalize traditional arts.
We want to cultivate these maiko
Like Kabuki, become a leader in traditional arts
Many characters in the play have also established deep feelings in long-term artistic practice and sisterhood.
I prefer to see each other as family and show a warm and harmonious side.
For example, Yoshino, a geisha who has been married and retired, runs back to Kyoto after her marriage has problems.
Facing her husband, she said that this is home.
I returned to Yagata after five years.
Even after I caused so much trouble, even though they helped me throw such a big farewell.
I can naturally say, "I'm back."
Even if I go back to that home in Hiroshima now.
I can't say "I'm back," and no one can say "Welcome home."
It was Hirokazu Kore-eda who said in an interview -
"For many things, although I will have my own answer in my heart, whether I watch a movie or make a movie, it is not for that answer. Movies can record the times, and I can do the same myself, being a witness, because if you don't record it, you may be forgotten, but you don't have to give the answer in the movie."
In the face of doubts and controversies in this industry.
I believe that everyone will get their own answer after watching this drama.