The magic of online games is that anyone can experience another life in the game world, live the life they envision, and develop a relationship that has never been seen before. Therefore, the charm of the online game world is not "irrelevant to reality", but "both broken and connected with reality":
Everyone can let go of their real identity and play a role in it that they have not played, so as to satisfy the unsatisfied shortcomings in reality.
On this basis, the story of this film was derived. The father, who was supposed to be promoted, suddenly resigned from the company one day, leaving the family who were usually accustomed to the absence of the workaholic father feeling overwhelmed. Since the father, who usually lives only as a worker, rarely spends time with his son Guangsheng, Guangsheng can't help but think of this idea in his mind when he faces a strange father and his father's newly deceased colleagues asking questions about his relationship with his father:
"Will I cry when this person dies?"
He began to search for his memories with his father, only to go back to the memories of his father taking him to buy Final Fantasy III when he was a child, and then the father and son played electric together in the middle of the night. Later, because his father's job was more and more important, the ending that he originally wanted to watch together could only be watched by Guangsheng himself.
"I want to know a little more about my dad."
However, in the face of a father with a straight face, it is difficult to even talk, let alone understand.
The distressed Hikari, recalling the time of playing video games with his father, thought of a way, that is, to buy a game console for his father, and by the way to buy "Final Fantasy XIV" for his father, so that his father, who has nothing to do, becomes a member of the "Warrior of Light" through video games, and pretends to be a strange player through his role to talk to his father through words, and leads his father to grow.
And this is the "Father of Light Project".
But will everything go so well? Whether it is the father who has not been exposed to video games for a long time, or the dual identity of the father, or the advertising agency proposal work that has to be carried out at the same time, while Guangsheng gradually knows, he also finds that his father seems to have some big secrets to hide from himself...
Although the first impression is that the film was made to market Square's online game, in fact, before the release of this film, there was a 2017 short TV series with similar content. This in itself is adapted from the personal true story adaptation novel "One Stroke Kill SS Diary" serialized by the protagonist maidy in the blog.
So you will see a lot of realistic portrayals of online game life, not the battle part, but the daily life of guild members. Just like many online games, in addition to the main line of the game, many times it is more like a kind of social software, so the game details themselves may feel a little strange.
For example, the Level of the Maiday character must be very high, and taking the father to fight the copy may be blamed for a knife to die. Although it is not clear how Final Fantasy XIV actually works, if the monster dies with a knife, the father should not want to play it soon.
At this time, shouldn't we open up to carry out this task?
Because the movie is adapted from a true story, even the characters in the game are referenced, and even suspected of borrowing Maidy's account number with friends, or asking them to play the plot of the online game world in the film. Although in order to restore the actual game process and use the online game world screen performance, the scheduling will be less flexible, and even sometimes give people an embarrassing feeling, but through the superb performance of the voice actor, it also allows the audience to quickly integrate into the relaxed sense of the players in the film.
The exaggerated actions of the game characters, coupled with various funny situations in the film: such as the various funny things that the father made as a novice player, the contrast with the seriousness in real life, and the simple enthusiasm triggered by the game after adjusting the game world, there is also an unexpected sense of harmony.
However, compared with the presentation of the online game world itself, this film is more about the relationship between father and family through games.
The game as a space medium to solve the problems in the film at key moments, such as when the protagonist is distressed by the company's proposal, it is the father in the game who relieves his worries; the protagonist who originally has no girlfriend later chases after the female colleague of the company is also through the game to climb the relationship, and let the father release his bad impression of the daughter's boyfriend; it is also the protagonist disguised as the father's teammate in the online game world, and even the climax of the whole drama is also through the game to overcome the character's demons. It can be said that the game provides the possibility of more direct dialogue between people by suspending people's real identities.
Whether it is the TV version of the male protagonist played by Yudai Chiba, or the actor who played the male protagonist of this theatrical version, Kentaro Sakaguchi, both chose to be a more beautiful actor, and his online game character Maidy is a blonde beast-eared girl, which inevitably makes the father-son interaction atmosphere in the game world in the film a little subtle.
Because there is no voice in the game, it is all about typing communication, and the protagonist's network character Maid is voiced by Aino Nanjo, which makes people feel a bit like a real person, rather than a real person. Especially every time the real-life father unexpectedly talks to the protagonist, the protagonist's sense of busyness and shyness that does not know how to talk back has a cute feeling, even a strange feeling, do you think this will form some forbidden online love?
After all, the online game world is such a strange place. If you don't open the voice, how do you know if it is the boss you hate who gets along with you, or the next-door neighbor who quarrels with you?
Even later in the movie, the father's game character kneels down on one knee to the son's game character.
Although the real protagonist Maidy has died of cancer in 2020, and his account update is still on November 17, 2020, through this movie, we can see the hilarity of the dense relationship between online games that have declined in this era, and how the game makes people realize their different aspects from others.
For example, Maidy, who shouts "Long live celibaliity" in reality, is depicted in another virtual space of the movie as a victory group with a love to fight electric and a girlfriend, and he does go to the double sense of "another world".
Reinvent the parent-child relationship with online games and connect reality in the virtual. I think this is the real meaning of the film, and it is also the value orientation that the film brings to people.