Directors Zhou Qingyuan (left) and Gong Beiyuan (right) Photo/Song Jinyu
Text/Yangcheng Evening News reporter Li Li
Directed by Zhou Qingyuan and starring Wang Yanhui, Zhang Youhao and Gong Beiyuan, the movie "The Great Father" will land in theaters nationwide on April 9. Recently, the film's director Zhou Qingyuan brought the lead actor Gong Beiyuan to foshan roadshow and exchanged views with the audience after the screening.
With the story of a father and son running a marathon as the core, the film not only has the blood and fluency unique to sports movies, but also shows the delicate Chinese father-son relationship, which touched many audiences during the screening of the roadshow. An audience member said that he had not contacted his father for ten years: "This movie tells me a truth, everything needs to be communicated first, and it is possible to understand after communication, and you can love after understanding." I didn't understand this before, but this movie pushed me, and now I want to communicate with my father. ”
With sports as the carrier, tell the family story of ordinary people
The protagonists of "The Great Father" are a father and son: the son Xiao Erdong suffers from congenital diseases, but dreams of being a professional marathon runner like his mother when he was alive; the father Xiao Daming is worried about his son's future, so he let him "preview" the life of the blind man early, and he is afraid that his son's illness will be repeated and prevent him from practicing marathons. But the relationship between the two quietly changed after Sholdong really became ill and blinded. In the face of his son's depression, Xiao Daming decided that he must accompany his son to run a marathon...
"My first idea was to make a story to show the implicit and full fatherly love of oriental fathers for their children." Zhou Qingyuan said that he finally found a carrier to embody this love in the common run of father and son in "The Great Father", "Chinese-style fathers often hide emotions in their hearts and do not know how to express them." This delicate emotion between father and son is like the tow rope between the blind runner and the runner in the marathon in the film——— the father is always uneasy about the child, but one day, he will let go of the child's hand and let him run on his own. ”
Zhou Qingyuan is from Malaysia, and his past football-themed film "Brilliant Years" has achieved a high score of 7.5 points on Douban. It is precisely because of the success of this film that he got the opportunity to direct the Chinese film "The Great Father". Zhou Qingyuan said that although he has made a number of sports-themed films, the final foothold of his works is still family affection: "I am most interested in the emotions between people, and "Brilliant Years" is also a story of brotherhood. Movement is just a way of storytelling. He said that in the future, he also wants to shoot more films in China, "not limited to sports films, I want to tell more stories of ordinary people."
Life is like running a marathon, breaking down and persevering
Before creating "The Great Dad", Zhou Qingyuan interviewed a blind runner named Why Runner-up and was deeply moved by his story of breaking through himself through marathon. "I was particularly touched by the fact that blind people ran out of their own world because of their exposure to marathons." Zhou Qingyuan said, "Life is like running a marathon, the moment of starting is always full of spirit, but running, the journey begins to become less smooth, there will be times when you want to give up, but it is like this while working hard and collapsing while insisting, we finally reached the end." In this process, everyone who loves us is the runner of our life. With them, we will eventually run the full distance. ”
The metaphor of life is also reflected in a small detail in the film: a piano key is broken, and in the end, the father and son use a match to re-prop it. Zhou Qingyuan explained: "This piano key is very similar to Xiao Erdong, he was born with flaws, although his father exhausted his ability but still could not change. Eventually, Xiao Daming realized that people sometimes really can't compete with fate. But you can prop up life with positive energy. ”
Similar to the details of "born to the sun", there are many more in the film. For example, once Xiao Daming mixed with the neighbor's old lady and casually said, "If the flowers want to bloom, you can't stop them." Zhou Qingyuan said that the flower is a metaphor for a dream, "because no one can stop anyone who really wants to realize their dream."
Filmed in a mountain town, a scene ran more than 42 kilometers
"The Amazing Dad" was filmed in Chongqing. Zhou Qingyuan said that when he first came to that mountain city, he was attracted by its unique sense of fantasy. But as he lived, he gradually discovered the true charm of the city. "There are a lot of steps in the city, but everyone is laughing and going to climb. I can see in them the positive energy and vitality of facing the suffering of life. "However, filming in The Mountain City can be bitter to the roles of Wang Yanhui and Zhang Youhao, the father and son." It looks like a running shot of a second or two, and they're going to run back and forth many times. A 42-kilometer marathon was filmed, and they definitely ran more than that. Zhou Qingyuan revealed that Wang Yanhui even ran to the leg and was injured at one point, but he still insisted on running.
Zhou Qingyuan also gathered a number of real marathon folk running groups and accompanied the actors to complete the huge marathon in the movie. After the end of the film, the names of these running groups and each of their members are presented one by one in the subtitles, and the shots of the blind runners and their escorts have become the most touching Easter eggs at the end of the film.
"I used to be in sports, and my record of running 100 meters was held in my hometown for ten years. So I've always wanted to make sports movies, even if it's a little bit of a side. Gong Beiyuan said with a smile. She got her wish, playing a cold marathon coach in the film but fiery on the inside.
I thought it was just a dream, but through "The Amazing Dad", Gong Beiyuan knew for the first time that there were blind runners in the marathon, "I found more meaning in this movie." She called on all sectors of society to care more about people with disabilities and "help them do more of the same things as us, so that they can find a wider world."
Author: Li Li
Source: Yangcheng Evening News