To tell the truth, when "Your Wedding" was suddenly set for May Day, I probably set the tone of "winning the box office and losing word of mouth" for the film, because as a new media practitioner, I know how important the young people are to the traffic pool, and the topic of "youth" and "love" is precisely the topic that young people are most likely to empathize with.
Of course, at the current level of Chinese films, I am also very clear that if you want to tell a youth story that runs through 15 years in two hours, it is basically equivalent to a fool's dream.
Nowadays, when you search the Internet for the keyword "your wedding", you will be greeted by an overwhelming amount of bad reviews and ridicule. But I don't want to classify this film as "useless", because without talking about the rationality of the plot, many bits and pieces of small details in the film still resonate with me...
(Don't expect all viewers to be veteran movie enthusiasts, movies are essentially an entertainment tool, and the physical and mental pleasure, or emotional resonance, that is, the most essential pleasure we have in watching movies, isn't it?) ）
Therefore, I understand why so many viewers "gave the movie a bad review with tears", because although we do not have such a pompous youth memory of the male and female protagonists, some of them are the youth symbols that we have written in our youth.
That's why I say that the people who shed tears for "Your Wedding", I understand your youth.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="15">01 </h1>
In my teenage years, it was the era when online literary students sprouted and sparked. At that time, itchy literature, paired with nonsensical Martian text, was a sign that a child pretended to be maturing.
And the most heart-wrenching thing about "Your Wedding" is the itchy literature sentence after sentence, like the self at that time:
"I don't know, never had, and after having and then losing, which one hurts more?"
"I used to be silly, worrying about the future and wasting the present."
"The feelings of adolescence often begin for no reason, and the end is even more unexpected."
Isn't this chicken soup strip, which seems to resonate easily, exactly what people want to do most, "Isn't this talking about me"?
To tell the truth, the film from high school to college, but also to enter the society, life from youth to maturity, the small stories, even if we look back now, we can't help but sneak out laughing.
And how is "Your Wedding" about it?
You Yongci (Zhang Ruonan) pulls Zhou Xiaoqi (Xu Guanghan) over the wall to go to the "grove", which is misunderstood by Zhou Xiaoqi as going to the grove to do something shy, twisting and worrying about whether it is going too fast, and the result is that the "grove" is a kebab shop outside the school.
When she returned home from the rain, You Yongci accidentally turned over a box of discs with "Mysterious Universe" written on it. You Yongci asked Zhou Xiaoqi curiously, when did boys see this? Zhou Xiaoqi mistakenly thought that this was asking for a specific time, saying "11 o'clock in the evening." Since then, 11 o'clock has become a meme for You Yongci to ridicule Zhou Xiaoqi:
"Every day, at 11 p.m., I was thinking that Zhou Xiaoqi was going to start busy again."
These youthful and shy laughs, even if they are like the trembling little wits in the small theater of youth, but people like me who are nearly thirty years old still can't help but raise the corners of their mouths, and their thoughts fly to the past - commonly known as empathy.
I remembered that when I was in middle school, I also liked to tease the girls I liked (this like does not mean admiration, it is the meaning of interest, just like at that time, almost all beautiful girls will be surrounded by many boys from time to time), pull their hair, poke their backs, say a few words that seem to be light and actually humorous, and then wait for the girls to be angry, laugh and run away, look at the girls who are angry on the surface, and the inner happiness, the relationship is so close.
That's right, "The Girl We Chased In Those Years" has already had a lot of elaboration.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="15">02</h1>
I know that "Your Wedding" has been given a new name by many netizens - "The Life of Licking a Dog", which probably means that the male protagonist tried his best, and finally watched the female protagonist wear a wedding dress to marry someone else, leaving only himself with self-touching, and then a chicken feather.
Yes, these comments are all correct, but because of this, I can only say that you really don't understand what the middle school boys at that time were for in the face of the girls they liked.
Quite simply, for the girls to be happy.
The so-called love that sprouted in middle school is the initial appearance of love, but also the purest appearance, no substance, no concern, and even no IQ, "I like you, I like the feeling of staying with you, I am happy when you are happy", this concept that looks stupid now is the most true portrayal of that era.
Stupid love, but also the truest love, heartache, but also nostalgic.
The female protagonist, You Yongci, is the recipient of this love, not a participant, she enjoys the sweet world created by the male protagonist for her, and inadvertently satisfies the satisfaction of the little information in the male protagonist's heart.
Therefore, she has always been the initiator in this love. She can be cheerful and open-minded, regardless of the eyes of others and show affection to the male protagonist; she can also be found by the male protagonist to cut off all contact with the male protagonist.
She is sometimes cheerful, sometimes introverted, sometimes generous, sometimes vulnerable. Very Schrödinger isn't it? But as long as she doesn't hate the male protagonist and is still willing to smile and look at the male protagonist, the male protagonist will still enjoy it, do you believe it?
In youth films, the protagonists are immature, and they may not be able to shoot the changes and growth of feelings, and they cannot exchange the audience's empathy and tears.
But what we empathize with is actually just a point that suddenly appears in the story. Even if these points are ten apart, they can be inserted in each of our stories, but they light up the long scroll of youth.
A contrast between the Korean version and the Chinese version, the reason is hidden -
In my youth, a lot of time was spent in fights
But there was a fight that I will never forget in my lifetime
Because that was the first time I met you
From that time on, I had only one thought a day
It's about being with you
In order to be with you, I desperately studied
Just to go to the same university as you
To be with you
I also do a lot of silly, impulsive things
But I was lucky
Because we used to love each other so much
If only I could have grown up sooner
Is it not going to lose you
This is what the male protagonist said at the end, the female protagonist's wedding, a few words, summed up the whole fifteen years of mental process:
When I fell in love with you, I was a teenager, I would be desperate for you, and I would rather give up everything for you, even if you ended up in the arms of others, but I was still glad that I had your smile and brightened my youthful years.
Today, my love remains the same, but I have passed the age of desperate for love. I wanted to love again, and I was already weak. Perhaps, this is my destiny.
"Your Wedding", holding your weaknesses, seeing you "break defenses", your tears, I understand.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="15">03</h1>
Empathy is empathy, but to be honest, today's youth films can no longer escape the framework of the classic "The Girl We Chased In Those Years".
The story of a young boy's first love who is crazy to chase girls, "Those Years" has simple strokes and ordinary lines, but why can it still move people?
Because it's grounded enough.
For example, the youth group portrait, 10 years later, recall "Those Years", we can still remember the characters in the film.
In addition to the two protagonists, there is Liao Caibian, who loves to perform bad magic tricks, Hu Jiawei, who loves to draw, and Ah He, who has a fat man in every story...
These various figures constitute the youth group portraits of those years.
"Those Years" uses a very heavy pen and ink to restore the campus scene, and each scene has a "record" to follow.
In summer, rows of bikes are neatly parked.
Graffiti on textbooks.
Penalty stand during class.
Even the story of Shen Jiayi using a ballpoint pen to tie Ke Jingteng's back shirt can find the prototype from reality.
The story of Ke Jingteng and Shen Jiayi closely revolves around the daily life of students, such as the inability of good students and poor students to deal with at the beginning; the play on duty between classes; the bet of evening self-study...
These are all stories that will really happen around you, and these ordinary and real details really restore the audience's memories of campus love.
And "Your Wedding", even if it is exaggerated, is still about the things that happened around the youth, so I understand why some people can tear up, because they once really loved deeply.
Men may become affectionate and sensitive as they get older, but boys in their youth are sincere and religious.
How "humble" love is, how thick the tears are today.
Then dry your tears, be kind to those around you, seal your youth in your memory, and then step forward.
Article Debut:
WeChat public account "Tingfenggelou" (tingfenggelou)
Please pay attention to my headline number, and search for "Tingfeng Pavilion" in the WeChat public account, or search for "tingfenggelou", follow my personal WeChat public account: Tingfeng Pavilion (ID: tingfenggelou), I will taste life together on these two platforms.