A monument in the Chinese film industry, "The Juvenile Murder Incident on Muling Street"

"The Juvenile Murder Incident on Muling Street" is a film directed by Yang Dechang, released in 1991, with a Douban score of 8.9 points. The film is 237 minutes long, nearly 4 hours, but when I first watched it, I actually watched it in one breath, and I was still unfinished. Yang Dao has this kind of magic, telling ordinary stories into an undercurrent, making people addicted. At first glance at the title, many viewers will think that this is a suspenseful reasoning film, but it is not. It tells a rough and straightforward story of how a tragedy happened, vividly showing the social atmosphere in Taiwan in the 1960s. (Be sure to see the clear version, when I was in school, I saw a shot version, I can't watch it)

The following is the story introduction, 4 hours, the amount of information is too big, I will pick the important to talk about. (Friends who don't want to be spoiled can skip this section between to after the dividing line)

The story unfolds from the junior high school campus life of The Fourth Grade (Zhang Zhen), the Fourth Grade is in the night department, the learning atmosphere is extremely poor, and there is a person named Slippery Head who often bullies him. He has several very good friends (kittens and airplanes) and the older children take them with them when they fight. During a fight, Xiao Si met Xiao Ming for the first time, and the story revolved around these two people. There are two groups of forces in the story, one called Xiao park, composed of civilian children who fled to Taiwan, and the other called 217, composed of children from the village (the village is where the Kuomintang soldiers who retired to Taiwan live). There are 5 children in the primary four family, the father is an upright civil servant with a straight temperament, and the mother is a teacher. Xiao Si and his little friend belong to Xiao Park, the former boss is called Hani, Xiao Ming is Hani's girlfriend, but Xiao Si has a dark affection for Xiao Ming. Hani ran away because of the crime, leaving Bob behind. The first half of the story is mainly about the background of the characters, the most wonderful of which is Hani, a romantic Don Quixote. The boss of 217, "Shandong", pulled the slippery head and supported him to be the boss of the small park. At this point, Hani, who ran away, returned to Taipei (a naval uniform is really handsome). Hani told XiaoSi that he had read a lot of martial arts novels during his days of running away, and only remembered a copy of "War and Peace", and seemed to be tired of the jianghu between the words. Slippery head and Shandong cooperation group a concert, Hani asked his accomplices not to go to trouble, but he went alone to provoke Shandong, and was killed by Shandong. Later, on the night of a typhoon, Hani's accomplices used to avenge Hani and destroyed 217, and Shandong and many of his men were killed. Xiao Si personally experienced this human tragedy.

Hani

The second half of the story mainly revolves around Xiao Si, Xiao Ming and Xiao Ma. Pony does not play much in the first half, but is a decisive character in the second half. He is the son of Commander Ma, the second generation of the army, who cut people in other schools and transferred them to the school of primary four, and became friends with primary four. Xiaoming lives in a village, and her mother has no job, so she has suffered a lot since she was a child and knows how to protect herself. During Hani's running period, she was very ambiguous with Xiaohu (a sports student) and Slippery Head, and had a close relationship with the school doctor after Hani's death, and at the same time, she was also with XiaoSi. Later, the doctor's family found a fiancée for the doctor, and XiaoSi was ruthlessly dumped. One day, Xiao Si took Xiao Ming to Xiao Ma's house, and Xiao Ming indulged in the luxury of Xiao Ma's family. Later, as everyone expected, Xiaoming got along with the pony without accident. At this time, Xiao Si was expelled from the school for various reasons, and depressed, he heard that he had been put on a green hat, broke off relations with The Pony, and threatened that if the pony was still with Xiao Ming for a day, he would go to the school to block it for a day. Xiao Si has not blamed Xiao Ming, he has always wanted to change Xiao Ming, to change Xiao Ming's image of not keeping the way of women in the eyes of others. As a result, when blocking the pony one day, Xiaoming appeared by chance, and Xiao Si wanted to save Xiaoming, but was ruthlessly rejected by Xiaoming, and xiao si stabbed Xiaoming with a knife in one breath. This is the juvenile homicide incident on Muling Street, the first juvenile homicide after the Kuomintang retreated to Taiwan.

XiaoSi's father is also a very important line, and it is worth mentioning that it is Zhang Zhen's biological father who plays the father. Xiao Si's father is a typical reader, influenced by Confucianism, just and upright, so his career is not smooth. He had a friend named Wang Dog, who had a lot of careful eyes and mixed very well in the official arena. Wang Dog helped to bring up Little Fourth Dad, and then let Little Fourth Dad buy office supplies again to gain benefits from them, but Little Fourth Dad refused. Later, Xiao Si Dad was arrested by the intelligence agencies, suspected of being a spy from the mainland, interrogated, and lost his job after returning, and he was nervous all day. There are two passages where father and son push bicycles to chat, the first time is in the first half of the story, the son is wronged and cheated, the father teaches his son to adhere to his own principles, not to bow to the evil forces, and firmly believe that the future can be determined by his own efforts. The second time was after his father was interrogated, the fourth elementary school was expelled from school, but he was still full of confidence that he could be admitted to the day department as long as he worked hard, but his father was silent. The father's change has been quietly formed.

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Yang Dao spent 4 hours presenting us with a desperate society. As described in "Water Margin" and "Diary of a Madman", in a society without principles, being a principled person is too out of place, and finally can only be wrapped up in the torrent and disappear. Yang Dao likes to use parallel narrative techniques to show the changes between the two generations (also used in "Yiyi"). Little Fourth Dad was originally a person who adhered to principles, but he offended his friends, was put on small shoes, and later although he had no worries about life, he had lost his soul. Like his father, XiaoSi only recognized the principle of death, and at first he was influenced by his father and was full of hope for the future, but one after another unequal encounters in his life made him completely lose hope. Just like the sentence that Xiaoming said before he died, "If you want to change me, I am like this world, this world will not change", Xiao Si wants to change everything around him, but nothing can change. Xiaoming's words also became the last straw that crushed the camel, completely destroying Xiao Si's faith.

The story takes place in 1961, when Yang Dao was also 14 years old, about the same age as Xiao Si, and should have personally experienced such an era. At that time, the Nationalist army retreated to Taiwan, a small Taiwan island, full of Chinese from all over the world, from the three religions and nine streams to high-level intellectuals, everyone did not know what the future would look like, and the children could only form groups to protect themselves. In addition, the film is full of various cultures, traditional Chinese culture (gaokao), culture left over from the Japanese colonial period (saber), and new wave culture imported from the United States (English songs, baseball), society seems to have no main backbone, and children can only struggle in this big dyeing vat.

In the first half of the story, Yang Dao used one small story after another to show the relationship between the characters, but only part of it was told each time, and there was a feeling of holding the pipa and half covering his face, which made people can't help but look down. The second half is mainly through the presentation of the psychological destruction of the father and son's encounter, which makes people heartbroken. The good times in the film are all in the foreshadowing of the moment when the final tragedy comes.

Although this is a human tragedy, at the end of the film, Xiaoming died, XiaoSi was sentenced to 15 years, Xiaoming's mother committed suicide by swallowing gold, the doctor was harassed by reporters, and Xiaoma lost his best friend and cried bitterly. But the sentence that impressed me most in the film was that a bun seller said to the little fourth father, "No problem, sleep in the sun will come out, the living can not always be choked to death by the fart."