After "Li Huanying", a number of films about father-son love and mother-child love have been released or finalized in 2021. Pictured is a still from the movie "The Great Dad" (2021). (Courtesy of the crew/photo)
Judging from the title, the movie "The Amazing Dad" is easily reminiscent of the Indian movie "WrestleMania!" The film tells the inspirational story of a former wrestling champion (Amir Khan) who broke Indian tradition and trained his two daughters to become female wrestling champions, and "winning the championship" is a crucial part of the film.
Malaysian director Chow Ching Yuen's new film "The Great Dad" is also a competitive theme (marathon), but the focus of the film is no longer "winning the championship" but "participation", which runs through the sacrifice and dedication of the father and the realization of the son's self-worth.
"The Great Dad" tells the story of a driver dad who drives a taxi in Chongqing and his son who is almost blind. Father Xiao Daming originally designed a life route for his son Xiao Erdong, who became a pianist like Beethoven, but his son loved marathons, and Xiao Daming went from the initial strong opposition to finally acting as a companion to help his son realize his dream of running a full marathon.
Director Zhou Qingyuan has been pinching the balance between emotion and sensationalism. "You've done a thin job, and everyone hasn't been deeply moved; if you push too hard, everyone will feel too sensational." He told the Southern Weekend reporter, "But in fact, life itself does not have too intense ups and downs every day, then we must find interesting points in the flow of life, pay attention to those small details in life, so that the audience can recall some memories of the past in the process of watching, and that kind of empathy is a basis for family film to have a deeper emotional touch." ”
Since Jia Ling's "Hello, Li Huanying" became the box office dark horse champion in the 2021 Spring Festival file and triggered public opinion, family love movies seemed to become popular overnight, "Li Huanying", "Migratory Bird", "Great Dad", "Dad is Wangcai", "Everything About My Mother" and a number of films about father-son love and mother-son love have been released or finalized. Actor Wang Yanhui has played the role of father several times, and he is also a father. After becoming a father, he preferred to take on more lifelike roles such as Xiao Daming. "As the saying goes, the emperor loves the eldest son, the people love the children, and the simple love of the people for the children is sometimes more touching." He said. At the same time, he also expressed vigilance against the theme of family affection, "be cautious." Don't think it's good to make the audience cry, there must be something with a spiritual core. He told Southern Weekend Reporters.
<h3>"Marathons are really like life"</h3>
The creation of "The Great Dad" began in 2016. That year, director Zhou Qingyuan came to the Shanghai International Film Festival with the football film "Brilliant Years" to participate in the screening, and after the screening, an outline of a sports-themed script was handed to him. At first, Zhou Qingyuan was resistant, he had just finished shooting a story about the Malaysian football team, did not want to shoot sports themes anymore, after reading the outline, he was touched by the father-son relationship in the script and changed his mind.
Over the next four years, he spent a long time polishing the script, making hundreds of draft adjustments. Zhang Youhao's son, Xiao Erdong, has a prototype, a blind man named He Yajun. He Yajun has so far run 70 marathon events, and formed the He Yajun Blind Group to lead more blind friends to embark on the road of running, and he also won the title of "Marathon Person of the Year" in 2018. In an interview, He Yajun said that what he could not accept most was not blindness itself, but that blindness made his life possibilities very limited, until one day he touched the marathon and found his own world.
The story of "The Great Dad" began to develop from this. Xiao Daming, the father played by Wang Yanhui, was initially a trumpeter in the song and dance troupe, and he also had to let his son learn piano, thinking that it was the best way for his son. Later, his lover died, he was both a father and a mother, forced by the pressure of life, he finally left the song and dance troupe to drive a taxi. For Xiao Daming's choice of career after leaving the song and dance troupe, the script has also been changed in several versions, including design porters, campus school workers, and finally finally decided to be a taxi driver. Zhou Qingyuan's reason is that if the child has something to do, the taxi driver can have a time that he can control relatively, and the taxi driver can accumulate wealth through labor faster than the lower-level porters, and support the cost of his son learning piano. More importantly, Zhou Qingyuan observed that the brotherly emotion between taxi drivers is particularly moving, usually everyone jokes with each other, and the brothers and children are unconditionally supportive at key moments. In the film, he also deliberately strengthens these grassroots friendships.
In the original script, a supporting actor was originally arranged, that is, there was another young man to fight with Xiao Erdong, and the two people had a fight in order to enter the marathon varsity team, and later Zhou Qingyuan cut these branches to focus on the feelings between father and son. A year before the film decided to start filming, the creators had the idea of identity disguise, which added waves to the father's and son's ordinary life - Xiao Erdong, who was completely blind after the recurrence of multiple sclerosis, ran away from home in a negative mood, in order to take care of his son, Xiao Daming pretended to be a voiceless nurse, communicated with his son through the mobile phone voice assistant, and many small stories of ridicule were produced between the two "strangers", in the process Xiao Daming was touched by his son's dedication to the marathon event.
The film's story is set in Chongqing. As a "net red" city favored by film and television dramas in recent years, some directors regard Chongqing as an excellent filming location for "Gotham City", crime films and suspense films in the East, and Zhou Qingyuan saw a kind of barbaric growth vitality in Chongqing: "The first time I saw so many stairs, those houses were built on the mountain, and even you climbed a lot of stairs, you saw this may be the fifteenth floor, but from the other side, it is the first floor, a very strange sense of staggering, I admire the coexistence of ancestors in this land with such an unpleasant natural environment. "Xiao Daming's father and son live in the area of Baixiang Street in Chongqing, where the buildings are very close to each other, and there are stone ladders in the middle that grow endlessly." I think there is something very positive in the lives of these two fathers and sons, and in such an environment, the two echo each other. These two people in their lives are not subject to the ups and downs of fate, want to fight against fate, I think it is very suitable to show in this city. He said. Wang Yanhui and Zhang Youhao are also required to speak Chongqing dialect in the film, and in Zhou Qingyuan's view, Chongqing dialect itself has a very vivid feeling, with an optimistic spirit, which can ease the sadness of the story.
The script was repeatedly revised, and the only thing that was not changed was the marathon. "Later I found that marathons couldn't be more suitable because marathons are really like life. Long way, you stand at the starting line can not see the end, and often you stand at the starting line at that moment is full of confidence to run forward, running and running, when encountering bad times, there may be the impulse to give up, at this time rely on persistence. Zhou Qingyuan said, "Especially this father and son, the son has visual impairment, he needs to accompany the runner, which corresponds more directly with life - your lover, relatives, friends on the road of life, is your accompaniment, accompany you on the road of life to run forward, overcome different difficulties." ”
The movie "The Great Dad" was filmed in Chongqing, and director Zhou Qingyuan saw a kind of barbaric growth vitality in the city. The picture shows the stills of the film. (Courtesy of the crew/photo)
<h3>Give him freedom, but love will stay with him for the rest of his life</h3>
The father xiao Daming in the film epitomizes the oriental fatherly love, implicit, introverted and calm. After Wang Yanhui became a father, he preferred to play his father, and his more well-known role before was a murderer in a crime suspense film, or a calculating fake drug dealer like in "I Am Not a Medicine God". Later, he played a father who preferred to be a scapegoat for the sake of his son's future in the movie "Calm Wind and Waves"; in "Great Dad", for his son, a big man who lacked sports, he was first trained to practice extreme sports marathon. Both are such fathers - "for the sake of the son, fate is calculated".
For the unconditional payment of father's love in the film, Wang Yanhui feels empathy. He remembers that during the filming of "The Amazing Father", there was a night scene, when the lighting teacher arranged the lights, he was waiting on the sidelines, at nine o'clock in the night, his phone rang, and when he saw that it was his son calling, he got up and left the studio. The son on the other end of the phone said a sentence of "Daddy I miss you", Wang Yanhui's tears could not be stopped, and he almost went home directly with a crossed heart.
"I've always been especially thankful to my son, who made me soft. Sometimes when I see my son, I think of my old father. I sometimes ignored when my old father was there, and when he was gone, I remembered every bit of it—from when I was very young he held my hand, when I took the college entrance examination, he took my hand into the examination room, and it was a man who held my hand. Now I'm with my son too, and I often hold his hand. Wang Yanhui recalled. In his view, the emotions between father and son are deeper and more detailed.
Two generations have different expressions of emotion. Wang Yanhui and his father are typical of the traditional Chinese father-son way of getting along, the two are relatively speechless most of the time, and the father has never said "I love you" to him; when Wang Yanhui is the father, before the son goes to sleep, he will say I love you, and the son will also say, Dad I love you.
The entire film is 104 minutes long, and most of the time, Wang Yanhui's emotions are faint, and he has only collapsed once in the dark. That scene is the son Xiao Erdong's disease recurrence, the doctor told them that they must play hormones to control the disease, but hormones are fatal to athletes, "basically he is abolished", helplessly, Xiao Daming can only press his son on the bed, with the doctor to finish the hormone. Leaving the hospital, Xiao Daming drove through the city alone in a taxi, his emotions could no longer be controlled, and he collapsed and cried.
Zhou Qingyuan watched this scene in front of the camera and was also deeply touched. "As a single father, in addition to carrying the whole family, he also has a tough shell to wrap himself. He could not show his weakness in front of the child, because if he fell, the child would have no faith, so he could only keep tightening, and finally in the night a car alone could remove the shell. His tears, in addition to being sad about the child's suffering, were more of a kind of helplessness. He said.
Xiao Daming's body, there are also Chinese parent-child relationships, parent-child education typical methods: other people's children learn piano, Xiao Daming no matter how tight life is, but also to give everything to buy a piano for the child, send him to learn the piano; he in the name of "all for your own good", from a young age for the son who may be completely blind at any time to plan a good life, let the son follow this route, no matter what the son's true hobbies and pursuits are.
Playing Xiao Daming, Wang Yanhui himself is also reflecting, "It seems that Chinese families like this kind of universality, everyone thinks that I have received such an education since I was a child, and you should also be like this, study well, all aspects must be good." In fact, if you think about it, the elite only accounts for 1%, 99% is mediocre, and I think we should enjoy mediocrity and habit mediocrity. He told Southern Weekend Reporters.
What is the best way to educate a child? Wang Yanhui also did not find the standard answer, and at the moment he felt that the most important thing was companionship. "I've pushed a lot of plays, give myself a year and a half off, and take a little more time to accompany my son." I feel like I feel a lot of strength in my son, as long as he says, 'Daddy, you go, I'll be fine here,' I'm full of energy, and we're supporting each other. The son in the play, Xiao Erdong, is also changing Xiao Daming, and he finally dared to try to run a marathon, which is also the inspiration of his son to him. If the film continues to play, it may be another direction, middle-aged Xiao Daming no longer lives that traditional, conformist life, he has been reborn.
At the end of the film, the father and son's adjacent left and right hands are tied with a red rope, and they set off together, Xiao Daming can't stand up in the middle, he doesn't want to become a bondage for his son, he wants to let him run to the end of the marathon. In the original design, it was the father and son who crossed the line together, and the script was changed later in the shooting. "We feel that in life, it is actually very important for parents to let go, and they cannot accompany you for a lifetime on the road of life, and they will let go at the most appropriate time, so that you can rush forward towards your own life." Zhou Qingyuan said. At the end of the film, the rope is tied to the son's hand, the father shakes his hand, the child continues to run, and the rope follows him all the time - just like the love of his parents, giving him freedom, but love will accompany him for a lifetime.
Southern Weekend reporter Li Yilan