Top 100 Youth Films in Film History:Dark Light (1999, Taiwan)
Screenwriter: Zhang Zuoji
Director: Zhang Zuoji
Starring: Fan Zhiwei, Li Kangyi, Cai Mingxiu
He won the Best Film Award at the 12th Tokyo International Film Festival in 1999
In 1999, he won the 36th Taiwan Film Golden Horse Awards for Best Original Screenplay, Best Editing Award (Chen Bowen), and Grand Jury Prize
2. The audience votes for the best film
tale:
Kang Yi is a seventeen-year-old girl who grew up in a blind hospital in Keelung, and when she was a child, her father lost her eyes in a car accident and her mother died unexpectedly. Later, his father remarried and opened a massage parlor, so Kang Yi and his father, aunt, grandfather, brother, and three lively and talkative blind massage parlor employees formed a blind massage parlor.
When the summer vacation came, Kang Yi, who was studying abroad, returned to his home at the Keelung Massage Institute and met Ah Ping on the promenade, and Kang Yi was attracted to Ah Ping and fell in love with him.
Ah Ping is the son of a veteran in another province, his mother died early, because his father decided to return to the mainland alone to settle down, he was expelled from school after fighting at the military school, and he was sent by his father to his former military friend, and the underworld brother took care of him. Meeting Ah Ping is a fresh start of this summer vacation for Kang Yi, although the blind house is noisy as usual, but as the eldest brother brings Ah Ping to the massage parlor, Kang Yi also knows him better, because of Kang Yi's active invitation, she and Ah Ping have a chance to get along alone, and their love affair also begins, but Ah Lin, a middle school classmate who thinks that he is Kang Yi's boyfriend, is stubbornly pestering Kang Yi. When joy creeps in, the misfortunes that follow occur one by one. Ah Ping is involved in a gang fight and is stabbed to death in the chaos; Kang Yi is almost raped by Ah Lin's friends, followed by Kang Yi's father who suffered a stroke and was sent to the hospital, and finally returned to heaven and lacked skills.
The summer vacation was almost over, Kang Yi was preparing dinner with her family as usual, she looked out the window at the fireworks in Keelung Harbor and smiled quietly, looking back at the living room, she seemed to see the dawn in her heart.
Film critics:
In the seventeen-year-old youth of the Keelung girl, there were two things that made her unforgettable. She meets a boy she likes, but the boy ends up getting involved in a gang fight and accidentally dies. My father had a stroke, and finally the hospital rescue was exhausted. The departure of the two most important people in their lives is like the "darkness" in the title of the movie that envelops Kangyi in the long summer vacation.
Echoing the departure of the two characters is the whole film's gray tones. First of all, the building where the Kangyi family lives, then the dilapidated and old police station, and the large and chaotic Port of Keelung, and even the basketball court and roadside stall where Ah Lin and Kang Yi quarreled, all of which are cold and dead under the camera. Correspondingly, it is the long-lens shooting method of fixed camera position, and the "dark" son comes to the face in the construction of visual language, bringing people heavy depression. Although there seems to be no great sorrow and joy in youth, there is no vigorousness, but the monotony and repetition of life can still suppress people's feeling of "darkness".
But in stark contrast, the part where Kang Yi and Ah Ping travel together, the night market, the overpass, the fishing boat, on top of the gray tone, the film finally appears gold, orange, sky blue, and also appears overhead shooting and sports shooting. This section seems to be a window opened in a large darkness, and the life of the young girl Kangyi feels a beautiful light. When Kang Yi and Ah Ping kissed, the sun shone into the building, lighting up the rainy and wet summer in Keelung.
By the end of the movie, Kang Yi sat in front of the window and watched the brilliant fireworks over Keelung, and his face was swept away with sadness and worry, and a rare calm smile appeared. Then she crossed a dark aisle to the bright living room. Father returned from afar with many things, Ah Ping returned from Hualien, and Kang Yi began to chat with him. Through the previous plot, the audience already knows that the two men died. At the end, the director connects reality with Kangyi's imagination through fireworks, and the dark corridor that Kangyi passes through is both physical darkness and the unforgettable growth that Kangyi has experienced this summer. In the death of her father and lover, she chose to use her imagination to heal herself, and used the light of imagination to resist the darkness that must be experienced in growth and youth. This is not only the self-growth of the young girl Kangyi, but also reflects the powerlessness of reality from the side. It turns out that reality is so dark and heavy that we can only heal ourselves through imagination. Just like the repeated confrontation between Taiwanese and Chinese in the film, the strife between gangs, and the constant harassment of Ah Lin, Kang Yi, Ah Ping, and his father cannot change the status quo of darkness, and can only pursue the light in their imagination. As Kang Yi's stepmother said, what the stars and the moon are, she does not know that for Kang Yi and Ah Ping, they may have seen the light of the stars and the moon, but this light they cannot save or retain, they can only keep looking forward to. (Zhao Mingjie)