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Time Contributor | County Howe
Older youth in a cinema.
What was the best Japanese movie last year?
Recently, Japan's "Movie Shunpao" magazine, which has been published for 103 years, announced the list of the top ten films in 2022.
Among them, "Licorice Pizza" directed by Paul Thomas Anderson topped the list of the top ten foreign language films, and the title of the best Japanese film was won by director Miyake Sing's transformational work.
"Keiko, Gaze"
Earlier, this film was shortlisted for the adventure unit of the 2022 Berlin Film Festival, and was hard to find at the Pingyao International Film Festival in the same year, becoming the most popular film in the premiere unit.
In Japan, the film won many awards such as Best Picture and Best Actress at the Film Awards and Mainichi Film Awards.
While turning on the sweep mode, you are also in Yahoo! Japanese nets such as Movie Picture and Movie Walker received high scores of 3.8 and above (out of 5.0).
So, what's so good about this movie that's only 99 minutes?
Keiko, gaze
The main creative lineup of the film, there may be only two highlights: director Singing Miyake and starring Yukazu Miura.
Born in 1984, Miyake is considered a niche among Japanese directors, and his previously well-known works are only the movie "Your Birds Can Sing" and the horror drama "Grudge: House of the Damned".
But his meticulous and unscrupulous shooting style has attracted a group of regular fans, and some even believe that Miyake should replace Ryusuke Hamaguchi's ("Drive My Car") in the international world.
"Your Birds Can Sing"
Needless to say, Miura Yukazu, who is 71 years old this year, has long become a legend in the Japanese film and television industry because of his handsome appearance when he was young, as well as his outstanding acting skills spanning the two fields of film and drama.
In addition to these two, the post-90s actress Yukino Kishii, who plays Keiko, is likely to achieve "soaring" through this film, and will be sealed in the next major awards such as the Japan Film Academy Award and the Blue Ribbon Award.
Looking at the title "Keiko, Gaze", it seems unclear, but after understanding the content of the film, you will find that the title is wonderful.
The film is set between 2019 and 2021, the worst two or three years of the global epidemic.
In 2019, professional boxer Keiko Kogawa knocked out her opponent and won the first match.
The victory came hard.
Because Keiko has lost hearing in both ears since birth, she cannot hear the referee's commands, read the seconds, or ring the ringing of the ringing.
But her eyesight is outstanding, so she can only judge everything in the game by focusing on her opponent.
This is the first meaning of "Keiko, gaze", staring at the opponent.
Outside the arena, Keiko returned to her normal life and became a hotel cleaner, with family members and colleagues who are also at the bottom level, as well as fixed commuting and walking routes, shuttling through the city and wandering to convenience stores.
In 2021, due to the impact of the epidemic on the gym's business and the increasing severity of various illnesses on the gym's director (played by Miura Yukazu), the gym faced the fate of closure, and Keiko suddenly lost her spiritual habitat.
In the midst of difficulties, she ushered in another professional game.
This time, she lost to her opponent.
Keiko, who is at a loss due to defeat, meets her opponent Sayaka Otsuka on the side of the road, and Sayaka thanks Keiko for letting her win the race.
At the same time, the overalls on Sayaka's body show that she is only a low-level worker in amateur boxing.
It is a subtle and heart-wrenching "reversal" in which Keiko looks at Sayaka as if looking at another self, or more herself.
The second meaning of "Keiko, gaze" comes out, gaze at life.
When the opponent coincides with himself in the helplessness and glimmer of life, the victory or loss of boxing is no longer important, the important thing is to use the fist to break through the strength of the gray life, so that the light of life can penetrate through that gap.
So, at the end of the movie, Keiko runs again.
Audience, gaze
"Keiko, Gaze" is not a movie that is easy to taste.
On the surface, the plot of the film is calm, the characters are mediocre, and the presentation of the game is dull.
But in detail, the director's weaving of emotions is fine and flexible, and the strength inside the film is very chewy.
As a tribute to the 60th anniversary of Nagoya TV, the film is adapted from Keiko Ogasawara's autobiography "Don't admit defeat! 》。
Keiko Ogasawara, born in 1979, is the first hearing-impaired woman in Japan to become a professional fighter, her life is full of ups and downs, and when she was in middle school, her mother even told her -
I'm going to kill you and die with you again.
She was bullied at school, entered a dental major in a special school, and after graduation joined a medical device company, she gradually became a professional boxer.
Today, she runs a martial arts school open to people with disabilities.
In such a life, how is the heart, "Keiko, Gaze" is expressed in many details.
The director's approach is quiet, which requires the audience to gaze at the scars and strength beneath the calm surface of the film.
The first is the emotional details.
Keiko's mother took pictures of Keiko's match, and after the match, Keiko flipped through the photos in the camera one by one, from Keiko's warm-up to her fighting her opponent, and the clarity gradually changed from clear to blurry.
This artistic treatment quickly outlines the time of the competition, on the one hand, showing the increasing intensity of the competition situation, so intense that the two contestants merge into an abstract painting.
On the other hand, it conveys the gradual tightening of Keiko's mother's mood, causing the camera in her hand to tremble.
This is the same as the mother-daughter relationship in the prototype of the story, which is always throbbing and never gains a sense of belonging.
In addition to his mother, in the film, the curator wears glasses and huddles in front of the TV screen to relive Keiko's matches, which not only coincides with the prototype of the visually impaired curator Keiko entering the boxing field, but also deepens the sympathetic friendship between Keiko and the curator.
Actor Yukino Kishii also saw the scene where the curator relived the competition, showing the iconic moment of acting, his eyes gradually reddened, but there were no tears, which fit the forbearance and loneliness style of the entire film.
The second is the details of the era.
When Keiko counted bedding at the hotel, the words "infection rate" and "common goods" appeared in the notice posted on the wall, which shows the penetration of the epidemic into daily life, coupled with the crowd wearing masks on the street, traffic restrictions, etc., which have created an atmosphere in the post-epidemic era.
This atmosphere, not necessarily decisive for the prototype story, is one of the main reasons for the closure of the gym in the film.
Founded in 1945 after the war, this gym was one of the first gyms in Japan, and its closure is undoubtedly a symbol of the passage of time, and it also adds a touch of depth to the film's seemingly thin sense of time.
Seeing this, perhaps I also understand the image power of "Keiko, Gaze".
No mourning, no combustion
"Keiko, Gaze" is a work renovated from the old.
It has two key words, physical and mental disabilities, boxing.
Looking at these two keywords separately, they are each a hot trend in Japanese film and television works in recent years.
Themes for physical and mental disabilities include "Quiet Snow" and "This is Love!" Bad Boy and White Cane Girl", "Drive My Car", etc., boxing themes include "Hundred Dollar Love", "Ah, Wilderness", "Blue" and so on.
"Hundred Dollar Love"
But it is rare to combine these two themes.
In addition to the subject matter, from a deeper spiritual point of view, the expression of "Keiko, Gaze" is also different from the above works.
Compared with the pure love or mottled of works such as "Still Snow", and the mourning and burning of works such as "Love of a Hundred Yuan", "Keiko, Gaze" presents a peaceful state of complete return to life, that is: no loss, no burning.
It is similar to the temperament inside the 2022 Korean drama "My Liberation Log".
"My Liberation Journal"
Japanese boxing films have been independent of the overall temperament of world sports movies, that is, they do not take Jedi counterattack as the climax, but pursue a life of "always want to win once" in the midst of constant failure, which is more in line with the mourning state of life.
But "Keiko, Gaze" is closer to life itself on this basis, and the film no longer exaggerates the mood of wanting to win, but only presents the necessity of the competitive state itself for life, namely:
People need to compete, no matter who they play with, what they compete, because competition can bring strength, strong or weak, this kind of power can make us continue to live.
That's why Keiko and Sayaka, hotel cleaners and construction workers, meet in the ring.
It's also interesting to look at Keiko and her person.
Due to the closure of the gym, the director and coach begged for people everywhere to find a new gym for Keiko who was willing to accept her, but Keiko did not appreciate it, and she did not want to enter the new gym on the grounds that the new gym was too far from her residence.
According to the general understanding, as a hearing-impaired person, Keiko should be grateful to Dade for being able to enter the new gym, and the "small problem" of long distance, can't you overcome it?
However, people with disabilities should naturally bear more difficulties than ordinary people, should they know how to be grateful better than ordinary people?
The answer given by "Keiko, Gaze" is thought-provoking.
That is, when people with disabilities treat social favors, favors, and help, they are fully qualified to have the same choices and attitudes as ordinary people.
From this point of view, "Keiko, Gaze" is not a movie that sells suffering and incites emotions.
Its objectivity towards people with disabilities, and its consistent calm expression, make the film truly consistent.
Keiko's gaze, Keiko's stubbornness, is all because Keiko is living.
Sustainably, steadfastly, live.
As at the end of the film, the empty mirrors of the city that never seem to end, and the silhouettes of pedestrians.