Taiwanese director Huang Xinyao, in 2017, made a large-scale work "Big Buddha Plus" a blockbuster, unveiled the ugliness of Taiwan's "high society", and also had a wide impact in the mainland, Douban 320,000 people scored 8.7 points, and was selected into the Douban movie Top250, ranking No.214.
In November last year, he returned with "Classmate Manas", and the cast added shi mingshuai, Zheng Renshuo, Natto, Liu Guanting and other powerful movie stars in addition to the original team of "Big Buddha Plus", so it was highly anticipated by the audience.
However, our mainland audiences have been affected by the epidemic, and it was only recently when the film was released that we were able to get a glimpse of the whole picture.
But at present, nearly 7,000 people on Douban have scored 7.7 points, which is quite surprising, perhaps everyone expects too much from Huang Xinyao, and it will still feel a little low to see this score.
Is Huang Dao not powerful this time?
But Pigo was a little excited to watch the whole movie, and the metaphor in this movie made people hard to say...
One
Let's start with a brief look at the story
The story line of the film is quite simple, telling the story between four high school classmates.
Because of their good relationship, after graduation, they often get together to drink tea and play cards, and talk to each other about the things they encounter in work and life.
The four classmates all call each other nicknames: Tim Tsai (Wu Mingtian, played by Shi Mingshuai) who shoots small advertisements, white-collar electric wind in insurance companies (played by Chen Dianfeng and Zheng Renshuo), canned food working at the household affairs office (Played by Lin Guantao, played by Natto) and Closed Knot who runs a paper paste shop (Played by Li Hongchang and Played by Liu Guanting).
The first story line: Legislator "Tim Tsai"
Tim Zai has always had the dream of being a director, and even dreamed of filming, but he could not attract investment, and he could only take a small team to shoot some commercials.
Once, when filming a propaganda film for Mayor Jiang Chinese (played by Tang Zhiwei), he was actually favored by Mayor Jiang and wanted to praise him as a candidate for the legislative council, so he gave up his dream of making movies and concentrated on politics.
There is a reason why Tim Tsai can be favored, the party's former legislator candidate Gao Weiqing (played by Chen Yiwen) has made a bad reputation because of the political scandal, mayor Jiang suggested that he hold a newcomer with no background to run, and let this newcomer be his puppet after being elected. Committee member Gao accepted Mayor Jiang's opinion and decided to take over the seemingly young and promising Tim Tsai for his succession.
But Tim Tsai is not an unambitious person, and in the course of the campaign, he quickly grasped the initiative and fought with Valerie (played by Zheng Yutong), the special assistant of Commissioner Gao.
In order to run for him, he did everything to the extreme, and even the wedding scene of his classmates' electric wind became the home of his self-promotion, which made his relationship with his classmates gradually drift away, and he gradually lost himself.
The second story line: workplace slave "electric wind"
Electric Wind is a relatively stable one of the four people, he works hard in the insurance company, the performance is very good, but he is a person of integrity, does not know how to meet the source, so even if he works hard, he will not be rewarded. He bought a house with a 7.2 million yuan, and only 300,000 of the down payment of 2 million was earned by himself, and the rest was his father's savings.
In order to save money, Electric Wind bought someone else to pick the remaining parking space. This parking space is walled on three sides, the car is driven in, people can not come out, so other people's parking spaces to more than 1 million, this parking space only sells 480,000. But every day the car can only be parked halfway, can not pull the handbrake, after the person gets off the car, and then manually push the car to go.
The girlfriend Ah Zhen (played by Hong Xiaoling), whom she met in the comic book store, accidentally becomes pregnant, and Electric Wind listens to the advice of the priest and decides to marry Ah Zhen, but is afraid of not being able to give her happiness. Electric Wind obviously works hard every day, but the road of life seems to be narrower and narrower, and it has been struggling on the verge of collapse.
The third story line: "Canned" with the wind and dust woman Mai Nasi
The most difficult of the four was the can, he often changed jobs, had more charms in his wallet than money, and often had to borrow money to survive. Later, he found a job in the household affairs office to check the household registration, and often went deep into the community to help residents fill in the household registration, so he was reunited with the high school flower Mai Nasi (played by Pan Huiru).
Canned has always regarded Mynas as his dream lover, and in his heart as if she were the perfect goddess.
Perhaps most men will have a goddess in their hearts when they are young, but as they get older, the goddess will gradually disappear. But a man like Canned Canned would not, and he would invite the goddess to serve at the table of God, and when he occasionally remembered it, he would take it out of his mind to worship.
But when the fairy descends, everything will be beaten back to its original form, losing the sense of distance and the beauty of fantasy. Like Mynas today, she became the dusty woman who ran the massage parlor, which made the love belief that Canned had believed for many years collapse in an instant.
He really couldn't accept this cruel reality, and even though the goddess's warmth was now at his fingertips, he chose to flee into the wilderness.
The Fourth Storyline: The "Closed Knot" of Accidental Death
"Closed knot" means "closed knot, yu knot", and Li Hongchang, who runs the Songmei paper paste shop, has this nickname because he stutters when he speaks.
Because of this innate defect, it is very difficult for him to communicate with customers, but this does not happen when he is with his classmates, because often he only says one or two words, and the classmates know what he wants to say and will rush to help him say it.
Closed knots and grandma are dependent on each other, because the money earned is not much, and they dare not find a girlfriend, so they have not married until they are 40 years old. Now Grandma is not in good health, lying in bed for a long time, and under the advice of neighbors, she wants to find a woman to marry and come to Grandma to celebrate. Through the matchmaking of the marriage agency, he closed the knot and met his single mother Ah Yue (played by Wang Caihua).
Ah Yue's husband used to work at the construction site, fell to her death due to overwork, Ah Yue brought up her daughter alone, and in order to take care of her daughter, she never remarried. Ah Yue, who had experienced hardships, seemed to have a heart-to-heart connection, and the two quickly came together. Just as the closed life began to move towards goodness, an accident took his life.
A line typed at the end of the film says: "I would like to commemorate my classmate Lai Junjie with this film."
The prototype of the closure is director Huang Xinyao's classmate Lai Junjie, who was hit by a trailer on September 3, 2002, and died of his injuries, when he was only 28 years old. The closed knot in the film dies even more absurdly, he is killed by a gang of hooligans, and the other party beat him to death because he recognized the wrong person.
Two
Each character's name and nickname in the film has a special "metaphor"
In 2005, Huang Xinyao made a documentary called "Scare Three Little", which tells the story of his classmates. And the people and things in this "Classmate Manas" are based on that documentary.
Huang Xinyao likes to directly transliterate English words into Chinese, for example, "plath" in "Big Buddha Plus" is the English "Plus", "plus" meaning.
The "Mynas" in "Classmate Mynas", although it is the same name as the goddess classmate Ofnas in the film, is the English "Minus", which means "minus", which obviously refers to the reduction of one person among his classmates.
In addition, it also shows the decline of friendship between classmates and the disillusionment of the ideals of youth.
The most special thing about this film is that the four characters who appear are representative, and their fate has long been hidden in the name and nickname.
For example, "electric wind" is an electric fan, he is as conscientious and desperate as an electric fan, but what the electric fan needs most is "electricity", but he always gets enough "electricity".
And "can" is also a person as its name, just like the can in the heart to preserve a piece of innocence, but the resealed can also has a shelf life, faith will eventually be destroyed by reality.
Although the closed knot will stutter when speaking, it can be seen through by everyone, and the director has given him the ability to communicate between the yin and yang worlds. He will try to meet the requirements of customers and make their "house" or "car" a good job. Because he felt that a person in the world may struggle all his life to buy a house of his own, then after they die, at least he can help them end their wishes.
Closed Knot also built a paper house for himself, which contained playing cards needed for electric wind, "scripts" needed by Tim Tsai, "school flowers" that he liked in cans, and "Mt. Fuji" for Ah Yue.
This paper house also heralded the death of the closed knot, who had spent his whole life thinking about others, but those around him often ignored him.
Corrupted by power and desire, Tim Tsai seems to be the best of the four. But he betrayed his dreams and gradually alienated his classmates. He even used the closed funeral to solicit votes for his campaign, which also attracted a severe beating from Huang Dao's breaking through the dimensional wall.
Of the four people, only Tim Tsai has no nickname, but his name "Wu Mingtian" (no tomorrow) has already shown the director's attitude, believing that such a person has no tomorrow.
Huang Dao uses such a poignant irony to expose those who see profit and forget righteousness in the world, and to praise the brilliance of humanity in the thick and simple Taiwanese like the closed knot.
Therefore, the theme of the movie is very high, and it is not like some netizens said, the fate of the four characters is very "decaying", and there seems to be no hope.
And the tone of the movie is more humorous than "Big Buddha Plus", such as in addition to the protagonist, the names of the supporting characters are also very colorful.
For example, the mayor is called "Jiang Chinese" (speaking of Chinese), the special assistant of the Gao Committee is called "Valerie" (I am willing), and the boss of the electric wind is called "Mei Yiyuan" (no one yuan), so when he reads, he is nicknamed "Wujiao", which immediately reflects Taiwan's political ecology.
The director adds this humor and irony by adding a lot of narration, making the image of the character more prominent.
Three:
Dialogue across dimensional walls in the film
In addition, the film not only has dialogues that break through the dimensional wall (the dialogue between the director and the characters), but also surprises like kato Eagle in a dream, as well as linkage with the two films "Big Buddha Plus" and "Sunshine", which seems to open the film universe of Zhong Menghong's Sweet Life Production Company.
In the film, Commissioner Gao Weiqing and Valerie are actually characters from "Big Buddha Plus". The "Big Buddha Buddha Buddha Park Incident" mentioned in the dialogue of Member Gao when he appeared on the scene was what happened in "Big Buddha Plus"; the incident of "Six Bullets Being Shot at the Service Office" happened in "Sunshine", and the head of the dish was called Ah He to do it.
These specially planted Easter eggs make the film always maintain a relaxed and funny atmosphere, teaching the audience to face this "chaotic" world with an optimistic attitude.
Four
end
Of course, compared with the previous work "Big Buddha Plus" to examine the sense of compassion in the human world from the perspective of God, "Classmate Menath", which focuses on the survival crisis of a 40-year-old man, has also lost that sense of heaviness.
The four stories of the four characters develop in parallel, and it is not as focused and simple as concentrating on one place and telling only one story line. Limited by the length and length, the deep feelings between the four classmates could not be well expressed. Some people also said that the soundtrack is not good, or even a mess, which is the shortcomings of the movie.
From this, most netizens concluded that "Classmate Mynas" is not as good as the previous work "Big Buddha Plus".
There are even spicy short comments that the two films are like their respective names, "Big Buddha Plus" is done with "addition" method, "Classmate Mai Nasi" is done by "subtraction".
In fact, Pigo believes that among those who score movies, there are also some who can't understand the movie and can't understand its connotation; there are some who follow the trend, others say good he thinks it's good, others say bad he doesn't like it.
As far as Pigo is concerned, when he watched "Big Buddha Plus", he didn't think it was so good; and watching "Classmate Mynas", because he was similar in age to the main actor in the film, he could still have some resonance, and he felt that the movie was still quite outstanding and suitable for savoring.
Text/Pippi Film Editorial Department: Bloody Dan Heart
© Original 丨 Article Copyright: Ppdianying
Please do not reprint in any form without authorization