Wen | racer
Too many people are accustomed to reading "The Juvenile Murder On Muling Street" as "The Juvenile Murder Case on Muling Street", and many moviegoers will say when they talk about the old past: The year we look at "Muling Street", how the suffix is. They did not hesitate to give the film the crown of "greatness", and even called it the pinnacle of Chinese cinema.
In 1991, Yang Dechang was 44 years old. Zhang Zhen, who debuted on the big screen, is not yet 15 years old. Strictly speaking, in this film that kills people after all, Yang Dechang is the narrator, Zhang Zhen is listening by his body and eyes, and we are accompanying Zhang Zhen to witness how a deliberately ignored era is turbulent.
In 1976, the prototype of "The Juvenile Murder Incident on Muling Street", Mao Wu, a junior high school student at Jianguo Middle School in Taiwan, was released from prison. He was 25 years old. And before and after this, we also came to this melancholy and reckless world. What is Mao Wu doing now? Will he be a viewer of the film? The real audience of "The Juvenile Murder Incident on Muling Street" is us ordinary people who have no intention of killing thieves and are powerless to return to heaven.
At the 25th Golden Horse Awards, the most suspenseful thing is the best actress, Manyu, who has won the film at the Berlin Film Festival with "Ruan Lingyu", which is also the first Chinese actress to win this award at an international A-level film festival. At that time, she was still a baby, and she was the first to reach the red carpet. The Golden Horse Awards Organizing Committee has long arranged for the Yellow Warbler, and after she received the award, she sang "Burial of the Heart" based on the interlude in "Wild Grass And Idle Flowers". The last to arrive at the Golden Horse Awards site was Maggie Cheung's old partner, and Jackie Chan, who had heard about her.
Zhang Guorong has not been to Taiwan for three years, and he is a popular choice for film emperors at this year's Golden Horse Awards. But in the end, he lost to the veteran Lang Xiong's "Push hand". But the beautiful teenager is currently most concerned about another big drama "Overlord Farewell", he met Zun Long in Taiwan, and the two staged a scene of ice release in front of the media, the origin comes from the role of The Butterfly Yi in the middle of "Overlord Farewell" originally belonged to Zun Long.
The reporters did not care about Ang Lee at that time, although the judges of Taiwan's Golden Horse Awards had already taken a keen interest in this middle-aged man who was late in life and would smile at every turn. His debut film "Pusher" won many awards at the Golden Horse Awards. Industry insiders believe that this mild-toned but richly meaningful film will bring a new atmosphere to Taiwanese films. The reporters were less sensitive, and they threw more of their spotlights at a tall director, Wong Kar-wai, who didn't quite like sunglasses at the time. He has repeatedly said that he will definitely cast a sequel to "Ah Fei Zheng Biography" and paid tribute to his investor, Taiwanese emperor superstar Deng Guangrong. At this time, Deng Guangrong was hurting and bleeding due to the inability to make ends meet with the stars shining "The True Biography of Ah Fei".
The real god of Taiwanese cinema is Yang Dechang, who is the same Shanghainese as Wong Kar-wai and is also as long and jade. He received the attention of the people, as well as the sideways glances, without hesitation. His epoch-making blockbuster "Juvenile Murder on Muling Street" is the film with the most single nominations at the 25th Golden Horse Awards, with a total of ten. This does not include that Zhang Guozhu and Zhang Zhen almost staged a scene of father-son cannibalism in the competition for the best actor. Best Supporting Actress, Jin Yanling and Jiang Xiuqiong in "The Juvenile Murder Incident on Muling Street" are both on the list.
When it came to the many awards sessions that made people hold their breath, "The Juvenile Murder Incident on Muling Street" only won the Best Original Screenplay Award. When the best director was awarded to Wong Kar-wai, Yang Dechang, who was sitting on the stage, showed a mysterious smile.
The 25th Golden Horse Awards awarded the best film for "Juvenile Murder on Muling Street". Prior to this, the greatest work in Chinese cinema had won the Grand Jury Prize at the 4th Tokyo International Film Festival.
Sunny summer days
The English title of "A Brighter Summer Day" is taken from a lyric from the classic Song "Are You Lonesome Tonight" by American rock pioneer Elvis Presley. The song was sung by Wang Qizhen, who played Elvis Presley in the film, at their campus concerts. When the song sounded again, the protagonist Xiao Si was already in prison. At this time, the film, which has almost no voice source, sounded the only monologue in the whole film: "Fourth son, remember this song I recorded?" Guess who I sent it to? I sent it to Elvis Presley. He wrote back to me, and he wrote that his song was so popular on this unknown island. He was very impressed and he also gave me a gift, unfortunately you can't see it. I now wear the ring he gave me every day, very sad! It's just that I don't know if that day can let you take it. ”
Three years later, an actor who was said by many to inherit the mantle of Shi Hua, Blue Horse and other performers began his acting and excellent director. This person, who was later known as Jiang Dao, launched his youthful dream that made countless people shine in the eyes of his father, "Sunny Day". This title coincides with the English title of "The Juvenile Murder Incident on Muling Street", and Jiang Wen said that his masterpiece, which won the Golden Horse Award for Best Film, was not influenced by Yang Dechang's divine work. But there is one point, these two directors on both sides of the Taiwan Strait have chosen a common way of shooting. That is to close all the teenagers and receive long-term performance training, the training is secondary, the key is to let the children soak in the era when they can't see five fingers, but still have their brightness. Jiang Wen calls this method pickling. Yang Dechang did a little more extreme, and he also specially opened an acting school for this purpose. After the completion of the Juvenile Murder Incident on Muling Street, the school remained. Specifically, yang Shunqing, one of the screenwriters of the film, is taught to these children, and in the film, he plays the boss of the village gang, Shandong. Most of the children who came out of "Muling Street" except For Zhang Zhen, were lonely and nameless. Ke Yulun, who played the airplane, whose father is the famous Taiwanese director Ke Yizheng, followed Yang Dechang and also filmed "Mahjong" and "Yiyi". His most recently impressive role is Liang Yansheng, the first person to sleep with Wang Jiazhi in "Color Ring". The sunshine teenager of that year has become obscene. And the aforementioned little Elvis Presley Kai Zan, after sheding his childishness in "Mahjong", is also abominable, and he claims that his hormones have been stuck in his throat. It is also worth mentioning Chen Hongyu, who played the slippery head, who died in a car accident. In order to commemorate this young man who died prematurely, Yang Dechang's "Mahjong" filmed a few years later named the naughty teenager in the film "Red Fish" (Hongyu).
In order to allow actors to better enter the role, Yang Dechang often uses the actor's real name directly on the role. Zhang Zhen is called Xiaosi at home, his brother Zhang Han plays his brother, and their father naturally wants to invite Taiwan's veteran actor Zhang Guozhu to appear. It was a family gathering in a different way. Jiang Xiuqiong, who played Zhang Zhen's second sister Zhang Qiong, later became a director. She directed "Traveling with Light and Shadow", which is one of the best documentaries in Taiwan in recent years. Playing Zhang Zhen's little sister Zhang Yun is lai fanyun of the famous Taiwanese director Lai Shengchuan, who is also one of the producers of this film. And Yang Dechang's ex-wife, the famous singer Cai Qin, also glimpsed in the film, playing the wife of Wang Dog, without a line, only her figure wrapped in a cheongsam.
Yang Jingyi, the heroine Xiaoming, has not been traced since "Muling Street". Her childish and simple performance in the film actually allowed her to compete with Maggie Cheung and Liu Jialing at the Golden Horse Awards that year. It also shows how far the Golden Horse Award judges love the house and Wu for "The Juvenile Murder Incident on Muling Street". To put it bluntly, this is the most vast single film in the history of Chinese cinema (a total of 237 minutes), which is still a story of red face and bad water, that is, Pan Jinlian's Xiaoming, who will definitely be killed by the teenager Wu Song Xiaosi. In Sunny Days, Milan is only the anti-anachronistic direction of a generation of young girls. But Xiaoming, who wanders on the streets of Muling, is the most vivid child of the times, a literal product of reality, whoever has money will go to whoever has it, and it is the last channel for a generation of independent young people to try to reconcile with reality. Yang Dechang told us very calmly that this road was not passable.
The story of The Ridge Street
In China, there are probably two of the most famous streets. A beautiful villa located in the Lushan Scenic Area, Song Meiling's former villa Meilu is near Muling Street. The other is In Taipei, a dormitory area of the Governor's Office in Taiwan during the Japanese occupation. This Muling Street can be said to be the most far-reaching place where the remnants of Fuso culture are spread, so the Xiaosijia and Xiaomajia we see in the film are Japanese residences. Shuttle doors and tatami mats are readily available. Even the murder weapon that killed Xiaoming was a Japanese knife, and the story in the film is that the Japanese woman committed suicide. The largest and bloodiest weapon fight in the whole film, the two gangs wield Japanese swords in the dark night, and the boss of the village gang, Shandong, died under this knife. The deeper memory of Taipeiers in Mulling Street refers to the many old books, calligraphy, paintings and antiques that can be found there. Mulling Street is the most important cultural symbol in Taipei, and it has become fashionable to buy books on Mulling Street. The "briefs" in the film are the "little book" fans of the old book market on Muling Street. The current Muling Street is no longer beautiful, from the heyday of 70 or 80 bookstores, to now more than 20. Taipeiers lament that the current Mulling Street is a "broken bead chain."
On June 15, 1961, The Day of Mulling Street directly gave birth to this later masterpiece. That year, Yang Dechang was fourteen years old and a junior high school student in the night department of Jianguo Middle School. His alumnus Mao Wu, in the middle of the night, asked his girlfriend to come out to "negotiate", the negotiation broke down, and the feelings also broke down. Mao Wulian stabbed his girlfriend seven times. This incident became an explosive news in Taiwan at that time. 30 years later, Yang Dechang made this incident into a movie that he could not surpass in his lifetime, to put it bluntly, even if Yang Dao is still alive, he may not be able to make a divine work of the same level as "The Juvenile Murder Incident on Muling Street". As one of the standard-bearers of Taiwan's new film movement, after completing his modern urban trilogy "A Day on the Beach", "Green Plum Bamboo Horse" and "Terrorist", Yang Dechang didrmant in the Taiwanese film industry for five years, once awakened, it greatly shocked the Chinese film industry at that time, and also made the history of Chinese cinema for more than a hundred years more flesh and blood and bones strong.
In fact, in the past five years, Yang Dechang has often been disturbed by the Maowu incident before he has become interested in movies. Some people even said that Yang Dechang's motivation for studying movies was to hope that one day, the blood of this beach teenager would be recorded. Yang Dechang, who had just passed the age of confusion, almost lost his enthusiasm for making movies. He and his colleagues talked about this story on Muling Street again. The word they talk about most is youth, and Yang Dechang defines youth as "a life that has not yet encountered tragedy." He also stressed that "youth is a character". And Chinese is too happy with the old age, and the strong interest in playing mature makes the ugly Chinese more and more easily decline before aging. In Yang Dechang's juvenile memory, his companions are unhappy, and if they are unhappy at this time, they will never be happy. Yang Dechang's creative impulse was reactivated, and he wanted to use images to remember his youth.
Yang Dechang came to his alma mater, Jianguo Middle School, but the building was empty. So Yang Dechang chose the main filming location of the film in Taipei, another middle school in Taipei, Tamkang Middle School. There, he will unfold a notebook that explores when the old man began, a memoir reminiscing about the day when his youth died.
"The Juvenile Murder Incident on Muling Street" has 92 scenes that need to be modified and reconstructed, there are 90 actors in the film, and the capital budget has been expanded from NT$13 million to NT$27 million, which lasted 110 working days. Except for the children, many of the staff, who were from that era, did not want the shooting work to end prematurely.
The Cruel Tale of Youth
Yang Dechang chose father's day and held a boot ceremony for the film he devoted himself to and even his life. He said, "This film is dedicated to my father and their generation, and they have suffered a lot and saved us from suffering." Sounds like a kind word. The teenagers in the film are not only suffering, but also dying one by one. The first is Hani, dressed in the uniform of the Republic of China Navy, and the second is Shandong, who killed him, and before dying, he calls out his girlfriend's flower name "Nerve". The last one is the Xiaoming who claims that he cannot change like the world. The little four who survived were imprisoned for fifteen years.
In fact, the suffering of the next generation and the misery of the previous generation are mutually causal. The subtitles at the beginning of the film point out that it was in 1949 that millions of mainlanders moved to Taiwan, forming a rare population migration in Chinese history. And in the eyes of this group of Taiwanese people, the provincial people live in the unknown and fear of the future. Their heirs organized gangs to strengthen their young and weak will to life. It is under such a strong narrative motif that the film has a truly epic character and has become an encyclopedia of pedagogy, criminology, psychology, sociology, culture, anthropology and religion. The film is naturally a tragedy, a cautionary prophecy about complicity, but it is not a gospel for the compassionate, but a document about the history of growth. The teenagers in the film who are immersed in violence and love are the future of Taiwan. They are saddened by great hearts, and they are covered in the skin of the waves of time. In a few decades, it will eventually become the mainstay of Taiwanese society. Extend the end-time complex of libido to a dream of Taiwan's economic take-off.
Too many people like "The Juvenile Murder on Mulling Street", not entirely because of the pan-political syndrome involved in the film. What many people perceive in the nearly four hours is themselves. In this yearbook of being born in youth and dying in youth, it seems that the wolves are running on the street of Muling, and there is your own shadow being dragged in the flickering light. You block people, and people block you. You watch others kiss you, and you've been kissed by others. Maybe you haven't done any of these things, but they'll all be done in your heart. You feel depressed that you will eventually consume all the time that is obviously inexhaustible. In this world that will not be changed, it is slowly aging at an invisible speed.
When I first saw this film, adolescence was long overdue. But after reading it, people are soft, as if they have no strength. I re-watched it several times later. The original shock was replaced by a pity for each other, and the common life experience was shaken out by a middle-aged man named Yang Dechang at the other end of the strait. Little Four's mother's watch, little girl's button, Little Elvis's voice, Little Four's clean smile, Old Four's billiards, Shandong's candle, Nerve's long hair, Little Tiger's basketball, Hani's navy suit, Xiao Pony's gun, Xiaoming's white shirt. There is also Xiao Si practicing kissing with an unknown girl in the dark night, but the most reverberating in his ears is the rough mouth that is loud and loud, that is, these foul-mouthed teenagers remain silent in the national anthem. I was also most impressed by the fact that XiaoSi saw his father plead with the teacher for himself without dignity, and the strong sense of humiliation made XiaoSi smash the light bulb on the roof with a baseball bat. Then the camera quietly watches the broken light bulb stubbornly flicking around.
As if it was just to show Yang Dechang's own enthusiasm for movies, he also built a photo studio next to Jianguo Middle School. The biggest idle writing of the film is the war of words between a director and a small star. It does not have a direct relationship with the main narrative, but only makes Qingxiu Xiaoming almost embark on the star path. Does it mean that youth is a performance, but who is to be shown?
Although this is a cruel movie, as soon as I saw Xiao Si return home, his hard-working second sister, his playful big sister, his spoiled little sister, and his silent second brother. It warms my heart. I also like that the mother of the fourth grade misses her first love, on the one hand, she laughs at her father's soil, on the other hand, she says quietly that many girls like him, but he doesn't know. I also think he's special. When Xiao Si's mother said, Xiao Si's eldest sister listened enviously. In the whole film, my favorite character is probably also the eldest sister. When Elvis Saw her, he couldn't help but smile hippie. Before leaving, there will be a flying kiss to throw over. Xiao Si was in prison, and the second sister cried into a tearful person, and her emotions were completely out of control. The eldest sister accompanied her mother and walked on the steps of the stairs with a wooden face.
"Perfect" Mulling Street
This film, which is mixed with the dialects of Shanghai, Guangdong, Hubei, Sichuan, Shandong, and Taiwan, is clearly dense, but it is not noisy at all. Each line, while reversing the plot, can also play the role of words as the voice of the heart. It is also these southern and northern tones that allow us to truly see faces full of the word "China". Thanks to the other three screenwriters who wrote with Yang Dechang, Lai Mingtang, Yan Hongya and Yang Shunqing.
And Yang Dechang's film aesthetic is the most praised, the relationship between the inside and outside of the painting, in the "Muling Street Juvenile Murder Incident" has been perfected, Xiao Si told Xiao Ming: he wants to act as the protector of this girl. At this time, the wind music of the junior orchestra has been playing, which makes the confession of the fourth child become somewhat hoarse. At the end of the performance, Xiao Si still maintained his high profile. This undoubtedly also hints that in this deaf and indifferent world, his voice will eventually be swallowed up. And Taiwan's best ear, Taiwan's chief recording engineer Du Duzhi's control of every soundstage is extremely ingenious. The kicking of the mopboard, the hissing of the basketball, and even the sound of the wind blowing through the leaves. All carry the footsteps of the times to knock on the door of our memory.
It seems to be a film that needs to be analyzed and cannot be exhausted. In fact, as long as you go around youth and politics, you will not deviate. What I want to say is that "The Juvenile Murder on Muling Street" is not an ambiguous film, it is very clear, and to put it bluntly, the whole film is about a duel between personal ideals and a world that has not changed. The purpose of this is to make it clear that Yang Dechang's films are extremely moral. Yang Dechang originally wanted to try his best to portray XiaoSi as a moral model, but later, he still followed the natural growth of the characters. Primary Four's transition from being a good student to participating in a large-scale gang vendetta has shown that Primary Four has developed a strong interest in violence in the baptism of bloody rain and wind. And Pony's gun, including the bullet that Xiao Ming almost killed Xiao Si, is full of more complicated metaphors. Of course, this suspected morally clean teenager, when faced with his brother who had suffered on his behalf, he only felt sorry for him, and did not stand up for righteousness. That is to say, at that moment, Xiao Si already had the cowardice of an adult, and according to his development, he was not far from hypocrisy.
"The Juvenile Murder Incident on Muling Street" creates a series of stereotypical and indifferent teacher images, and the wonderful thing is that Yang Dechang himself has a strong interest in being a good teacher, and each of his films constantly exhorts and reminds the world of how lifeless those habitual lifestyles are. This is also exemplary in "The Juvenile Murder Incident on Muling Street", but Yang Dechang is particularly capable of introspection. The real morality teacher of the film is still the fourth primary school classmate, who has given lessons to Xiao Cui and Xiao Ming, who are not in order with their faint and obvious posture. He demanded the way others behaved in the world with his so-called rules of life, and he was unsympathetic and unceremoniously rejected. Especially in Xiao Cui's body, you think that people are in the depths of the water, but people have a state of mind of self-enjoyment. In fact, the whole killing incident is a natural killing of human nature by moral strength. The most painful scene in the film is not the death of those teenagers. But it was Xiaoming's mother, who had been displaced all her life, and the old man who suffered from asthma also committed suicide after hearing the news of his daughter's death. In my opinion, this is the tragedy of the moral superiority that is about to collapse for the people around them. In the whole film, what needs to be deeply reflected on is the uncompromising defeat that China's old values have encountered in modern society.
There is another character in the film, which is worth investigating deeply, that is, the little doctor who returned from school and served his alma mater. Xiaoming, who pretended to be prosperous and prosperous, even thought that this little doctor had "ideas" about himself. This little doctor had advised Xiaoming and Xiao Si separately that children could not play with such things as feelings. But neither of them listened, and tragedy struck. The little doctor might marry the evil nurse who made him head-headed, and God knows if he would be happy, but he was at least happier than Little Four and Bob.
"The Juvenile Murder Incident on Muling Street" is so sometimes turbulent, sometimes gentle, sometimes overwhelmed, sometimes rushing forward. But it does not give way out the slightest way to meet the inevitability of life.
Whether a good movie should be a guide to life, or simply a volume of imaged Analects, is a matter of opinion. In my objective world, "The Juvenile Murder Incident on Muling Street" is infinitely close to perfection. And in my subjective kingdom, it is perfect.
About the Author:
Sai Ren, former deputy editor of "Movie World", senior planner of "China Film Report"
Copyright Notice:
All reprints must be authorized in advance: [email protected]
Also, please pay attention to the well-known movie WeChat public account: Human Film Guide (rjdy2014)