Preamble:
What kind of tragedy can make the ordinary and monotonous life instantly inject the power to stir people's hearts?
What kind of test can sublimate family affection into greatness?
Recently, the new drama "If Running Is My Life" broadcast by CCTV 8 presents us with a thrilling answer.
One accident, two tragedies
Jiangcheng.
This is the last winter of the peaceful life of the two sisters, Xiufang and Xiuli.
A cold weekend and a sudden car accident turned what should have been a peaceful life upside down in an instant.
The two sisters, Xiufang and Xiuli, have entered middle age, they have their own families and children, and their lives are plain but happy and content.
Xiufang's daughter, Anxin, a young dance teacher in her early 20s, has a passionate heart for dance and a fighting spirit for beauty.
Xiuli's son Ruohua, an introverted and ordinary senior high school student, has been studying hard under his mother's expectations.
However, this inconspicuous weekend car accident became a watershed in the fate of the two families.
Anxin unfortunately broke her legs in a car accident, and from a young woman full of vitality, she became a disabled person overnight.
Ruohua passed away in a car accident, making Xiuli, a mother who loved him, lose hope in life all of a sudden.
In the face of such great changes and grief, the two mothers, Xiufang and Xiuli, began the most difficult struggle in their lives.
How to help their half-disabled daughter face life again, and how to survive the grief of her son's sudden death has become a big problem for them.
And they will also show the great power of maternal love in this cruel trial.
A soul-stirring performance, the essence of the old drama bones
The wonderful interpretation of "If Running Is My Life" made this supposed ordinary family ethics drama instantly sublimated into a thrilling life drama.
Especially the two old drama bones who played Xiufang and Xiuli respectively - Xu Di and Chen Xiaoyi, they played the roles of these two ordinary mothers in a three-dimensional, plump and thrilling way.
66-year-old Xu Di is no longer the "Xue Zhenzhu" of the year.
In order to play the overweight so-fang, she not only spends hours on heavy makeup, but also rarely eats and drinks, making herself look even more clumsy and bloated.
This time, Xu Di no longer shows the wit of the past, but vividly interprets a middle-aged mother who has lost her direction.
The character of Xiufang was originally a cheerful and optimistic middle-aged woman.
In order to escape the pain of reality, she chose to overeat excessively, and as a result, she gained a lot of weight all of a sudden.
Xu Di used the greasy corners of her mouth and fat figure to show despair, anxiety and insensitivity to the fullest.
In the face of her daughter's accident, she cried silently, in the face of the predicament, she devoured and ate wildly, and in the face of her daughter's phantom limb pain, she hugged her daughter tightly and muttered "Where it hurts, where it hurts".
Xu Di did not hide anything because of the negative image of the character, she immersed herself in the grief of this middle-aged woman, and used her acting skills to give this ordinary mother a three-dimensional character and distinctive character traits.
55-year-old Chen Xiaoyi has already delved into the role of a middle-aged mother, and she uses morbid love and distorted power to vividly interpret Xiuli, an alienated mother.
This middle-aged woman, who was originally a housewife, fell into a state of self-isolation and blaming others after the sudden death of her son.
She uses indifference to escape pain and control to gain a false sense of security.
Faced with the death of her son, she collapsed in an instant, and in the face of her daughter's concern, she was so indifferent that it made people feel chills in the back.
Chen Xiaoyi uses a small demeanor language to vividly interpret this seemingly gentle but cruel maternal love.
Especially after the death of her son, she transferred this cold control to her daughter, and with her peeping eyes and capricious demeanor, she succeeded in recreating a kind of twisted love that is unique to Chinese mothers, which is terrifying.
The acting skills of the new generation are either immature or sophisticated
If the biggest highlight of this drama is the amazing acting skills of the two old actors.
Then the two new-generation actors who also played the main roles also have their own performances.
32-year-old Zhong Chuxi successfully portrayed a physically disabled person who experienced great pain.
In the play, her dance teacher, who lost her legs, is relieved and expresses complex emotions such as anger, despair, helplessness and self-abandonment.
This young woman, who was originally vigorous and full of ideals, fell into unprecedented pain and self-doubt under the blow of the amputation of both legs.
Zhong Chuxi vividly interpreted this pain with frowning brows and moans, making the audience empathize.
Especially the scene of phantom limb pain, her frowning brows and painful moans vividly express this unimaginable pain.
This kind of outstanding performance has surpassed many actors of the same age.
In contrast, 27-year-old Yang Chaoyue is a little blunt in the play.
Her eyes and tone are basically hard throughout, and it is difficult to bring the audience a sense of reality.
This girl, who was originally a college student, has an innocent and cheerful personality, but she is getting thinner and more pale under the control of her mother.
Yang Chaoyue can't interpret this transformation well, and her crying scene is more like an exercise in an acting class.
This is mainly because she is more adept at light comedy style, and this attempt at a big drama is still difficult for her.
But this is also the first time she has tried a drama since the film, and there is still a lot of room for improvement.
The plot that makes people cry is a metaphor for the ups and downs of life
In addition to the wonderful acting skills, the thrilling plots in "If Running Is My Life" are also very worrying.
The delicately rendered life pictures successfully bring out the helplessness and pain unique to those middle-aged stages.
When a daughter becomes disabled, how can the mother bear this pain, how can the mother face the sudden grief of the sudden death of her son, and will the trivial life of those days be the last straw that crushes the camel's back.
These seemingly ordinary fragments of life are ruthlessly broken by this upheaval, and contain endless sadness and helplessness.
The story of this play is not complicated, but it vividly interprets the ups and downs of life.
Perhaps every ordinary person has more or less experienced the great joys and sorrows in life, and this kind of ups and downs of emotional fluctuations is also the most touching part of this drama.
This seemingly ordinary car accident has become the dividing line between the fate of the two families.
Ordinary people encounter great changes overnight, just as the world is impermanent, hiding joys and sorrows.
The greatness of human nature is seen in the ordinary
What is it that sustains these two mothers to survive?
What is the force that allows them to persist in their lives despite great grief?
What is the spiritual core that supports the most moving part of this play?
There is only one answer, that is, maternal love, only maternal love.
A mother can challenge her years of heart disease in order to motivate her half-disabled daughter to live, and a mother can choose to forgive and start over in the grief of her son's sudden death.
The theme of this drama is to show the power of the great emotion of maternal love in these two ordinary middle-aged mothers.
These two women are not virgins, nor are they heroes.
One is a middle-aged woman who has been overeating for many years, and the other is a housewife who is paranoid and controlling.
However, in the midst of great grief, they showed great maternal love that surpassed all else.
In order to motivate her daughter to live, Xiufang chose to face her heart disease for many years, and in order to forgive life and death, Xiuli chose to let go of her harsh criticism of her daughter.
It is this kind of self-sacrificing love that supports them to come out of the shadow of life and death.
Epilogue:
It can face ugliness, it can endure pain, it can overcome weakness, and it can bless new beginnings.
"If Running Is My Life", an ordinary and extraordinary drama, shows people the greatness of maternal love through vivid stories.
Under the superb interpretation of old actors like Xu Di and Chen Xiaoyi, this ordinary and great theme is also perfectly reflected.