April 16, 2023 | Issue 3207
Danny, who has worked hard all his life but found nothing, went to the supermarket for the third time to return several outdoor barbecue grills that he had originally purchased for suicide, but was rejected because he could not find a receipt. Back in the car, he chagrified that he "always couldn't get things done."
Just as he was starting his old pickup, a brand new white SUV suddenly appeared. The two cars almost collided. Danny asked the driver angrily, and the feedback was a standard "international friendly gesture".
This is the beginning of the recent launch of the American drama "Angry Life" on Netflix. It was originally a common small dispute in life, but because both drivers were holding their stomachs at the time, it turned into a road rage. Then this road rage turned into endless mutual revenge between the two. Many people involved in it have been stabbed through the beautiful mask that pretends to be shown to others.
01
"Angry Life" is an Asian-American theme, produced by A24, the industry's dark horse A24, who has just swept the Oscars with "Instantaneous Universe". The three directors are Mitsuyo Miyazaki, Jack Schleier, and Lee Sung-jin.
Steven Won's Danny, and most of the people in Danny's circle of life are Korean. The heroine Amy played by Huang Ali is of mixed Chinese and Vietnamese descent like herself, and Amy's husband George (Joseph Lee) is of Japanese descent.
Under this theme, "Angry Life" has achieved two commendable points. One is that Asians are no longer a monolithic group. Through the detailed description of several characters in their lives, this play rarely shows that in American society, there are distinct personalities, habits, and conceptual differences between the descendants of immigrants from different Asian countries and regions such as China, South Korea, Japan, and Vietnam.
Second, although it tells the story of second-generation immigrants, the original family influence of Danny, Amy and others is not unique to immigrant groups. Their parents were first-generation immigrants and largely retained the traditional thinking of native Asian life. Their education, attitudes, and expectations for their children are almost the same as those of their native Asian parents. This allows Asian audiences to substitute Danny and Amy's feelings.
02
The English name of "Angry Life" is "BEEF", and Chinese most well-known definition is "beef", which is a bit of a donkey's lip wrong with the horse's mouth. Its verb definition is "to complain, to whine," which seems to have a little meaning, but it is not precise enough.
It wasn't until I discovered that in the terminology of the rap circle, beef means "there are festivals, there are contradictions", that I realized the beauty of the title. Having beef between rappers means that they have a personal grudge and need to attack each other by producing "diss tracks" (tracks that express contempt) to survive the fittest.
"Angry Life" is such a story of "forming a beam".
Danny and Amy were originally two people whose circles of life did not intersect at all. Danny is a small contractor who seeks renovation or repair work in the community, so he is considered a "handyman"; Amy's self-made green plant store is about to be acquired by the giant for $10 million.
On a secular level, one is a loser at the bottom and the other is a winner at the top. Neither of them can see each other's lives, and naturally they cannot experience each other's troubles.
After the two became entangled due to road rage. Danny's first reaction was: she lives in a big house, drives a luxury car, has an artist husband and a lovely daughter, why do she have to trouble me? And when fighting back against Amy, Danny also revealed his stereotypical speculation about strong women like Amy: You have everything, but your heart is empty.
In the later plot, when reviewing the road rage scene from Amy's perspective, the audience will find that Amy's action of reaching out the window and comparing her middle finger is not as decisive as Danny sees. Amy also hesitated for a while before reaching out, and the reason why she still made this action was because she was overwhelmed by the triviality of many careers and families at that time, and urgently needed a release of anger.
03
Viewers with a little experience in chasing dramas can guess that the end of the whole show must fall on the reconciliation of Danny and Amy. It's just that this process has been played by the screenwriter and director with a very attractive sense of ups and downs.
First of all, unlike many genre dramas, the coolness of this drama does not completely rely on strong plot and confrontation, but Shuang's lines with clear point of view, social irony, and thematic discussion in a series of cannons, which is very suitable for the identity of one of the leading actors, Huang Ali, outside the play - stand-up comedian.
This allows even Danny and Amy's own storyline to continue to have high-energy passages. Although there is no real hammer expression in the play, through the behavior of the two, it can be judged that Danny has depression and Amy has anxiety. Their etiology traces back to the most profound part of the show.
Secondly, the supporting actors around Danny and Amy mostly had a good life when they first appeared, either with successful careers or family love, and they were generally enviable. However, as the plot develops, the secrets that all of them hide will be inadvertently revealed.
The super-rich Jordana, in order not to make middle-class employees jealous of enjoying life, can only remove the "filter" at the inner circle; Naomi, who was nominated for success by the magazine, would get into LV's coat pocket at home; Cousin Isaac, who killed Danny's parents and could no longer run the motel, once participated in the Korean Town riots; Edwin, who was originally a model husband, found out that raising a child was expensive after the birth of his child...
In the end, the mutual revenge between Danny and Amy is not constantly heating up and forever tense. At the beginning, their behavior was a bit like a prank, just to "export evil gas", and the counterattack behavior was very bottom-line.
In the seventh episode, as good things happen in their respective lives, the two seem to even get rid of their entanglement and return to their original parallel disintersection. This slowdown adds a sad color to the final ending. The house Danny built for his parents was destroyed by fire. Although he is clearly told that the cause of the fire is a faulty line, he cannot accept that his mistake ruined everything, and his anger was transferred to Amy, which caused a chain reaction of uncontrolled chaos.
04
"Angry Life" puts the visual climax in the penultimate episode. In the final episode, Danny and Amy have to spend a lot of time alone because they strayed into the wilderness. After 9 fast-paced and high-density episodes, episode 10 is more like an epilogue, giving the two a "confession".
The most interesting thing about this episode is the distance between the two people in the picture, and the proportion they occupy in the picture. At the beginning, the two are far apart, and they can hardly be found in the picture, no matter who it is, the most shouted sentence is "leave me alone"; In the end, the two lie face to face and sideways, taking up almost the entire picture, and after accidentally eating hallucinogenic plants, they exchange identities and see each other's lives.
The stamina to watch "Angry Life" is still quite strong. In the discussion group of Douban, many posts about feminism, unconditional love, and specific characters and story details in the play have been built very high. Many lines in the play have also been shared by netizens after taking frequent screenshots.
Although it doesn't solve the problem, the way to ask the question is quite sharp!
【Text/Full Hoard】