"Following the Garden Seven" premiered at the Venice Film Festival on September 2, 2019 and won the Best Screenplay Award. It was released in Hong Kong on November 5 of the following year.
The director and screenwriter of this film are Yang Fan, is an old director in Hong Kong, who has directed the Kunqu opera-themed movie "Dream in the Garden" starring Wu Yanzu and Wang Zuxian, as well as "The Love of beautiful teenagers" starring Wu Yanzu and Feng Delun.
This is a lyric from the theme song of the Chinese version of "Flowing Golden Years" directed by Yang Fan in 1988 and starring Zhong Chuhong and Maggie Cheung, written by the director himself and sung by Qi Yu. "Following the Garden Platform No. 7" took this song back as an ending song.
Next is the cast, although this is an animated film, but instead of hiring voice actors who do full-time animation dubbing, it uses an all-star cast, mainly by film actors, and some well-known directors also play some roles with less roles.
The voice of the protagonist, Mrs. Yu, is Zhang Aijia, who has too many works to list them all, and she is a regular at the Academy Awards and Golden Horse Awards.
As for animation, in 1997, Chen Weiwen's "Xiao Qian", in which the Chinese version of the dubbing was zhang Aijia with Xiao Qian, and the voice for Grandma was Yang Fan, the director of "Jiyuantai No. 7", and the two have been cooperating for a long time.
Mrs. Yu's daughter Mei Ling is voiced by a certain "Buy Que Ge Ge", which is not described in detail here for technical reasons.
The voice actor of the male protagonist Fan Ziming is Lin Dexin, who is a singer, the family is considered a singer family, the father is Lin Zixiang, and the stepmother is Ye Qianwen. Lin Dexin rarely plays the leading role in film and television dramas, and in 2015, he served as the male number one in Liang Guobin's "Dead Kai La", but the audience evaluation was average.
Mrs. Yu's upstairs, Mrs. Hua Danmei, voiced by Yao Wei, was one of the main actors in Yang Fan's 1986 "Flowers on the Sea", and her own experience is somewhat similar to that of the character, becoming famous in the Shanghai Song Hall, later developing in the Hong Kong music scene, and then becoming an actress.
In 1984, she starred in "The Last Night of Jin Daban", adapted from Bai Xianyong's novel of the same name, and is also a character with similar experience, and it is very appropriate to choose Yao Wei to play Mrs. Mei.
The voice of the girl in yellow is Jiang Wenli, she is more active in movies and TV series, but the experience of dubbing cartoons is still there, and in the Chinese version of "How to Train Your Dragon 2", she voices the mother of the male protagonist, but the character is difficult to associate with the girl in yellow.
Jiang Wenli's dubbing performance in "Jiyuantai No. 7" reminds me of her soft kneeling in "Overlord Farewell".
Ah Guo, who lives with Mrs. Mei, is voiced by the well-known director Tian Zhuangzhuang, who is the one who has filmed "Blue Kite" and "Grand Eunuch Li Lianying". In terms of animation, in 2019, "Spirited Away" was released in China, and he voiced Grandpa Boiler in the Chinese version.
Fan Ziming's classmate Steven is voiced by Feng Delun, as mentioned above, he has cooperated with the director in 1998's "Beautiful Young Love", and Feng Delun's own work is more well-known is "Tai Chi", and he is also the enemy of Shu Qi fans.
In addition, there are many characters in the film who only have one or two lines, and many big coffees are invited to make cameos, such as Wu Yanzu with Baron Louis, Zhang Xiaoquan with the flower thief, Xu Anhua with the tram pickpocket, Chen Guo with black cat cigarettes, Zhang Xiaohui with Miaoyu, and Pan Dihua with Mrs. Lin.
Among them, the image of Mrs. Lin is painted according to the appearance of Pan Dihua himself, and there is also a clip in the film that pays tribute to "The True Biography of Ah Fei", and Pan Dihua just happened to have acted in this movie, which is a linkage.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="17" > spoiler ahead</h1>
"Jiyuantai No. 7" is an obvious nostalgic film, or the word "nostalgia" is more appropriate. The film begins with the lyrics of "The Golden Years", followed by an aerial shot where the shadow of an airplane floats by. The plane is so close to the ground, it should have just taken off or is about to land, indicating that the airport is very close to here.
Hong Kong's old airport, Kai Tak Airport, is located in the Kowloon city area, close to the residential area. In 1998, Kai Tak Airport was discontinued, becoming the memory of the older generation of Hong Kong people.
Therefore, this airport is often used as a nostalgic symbol in movies, such as "The Old Port Classic" appears many times, and the protagonists also go to see the last side before deactivating, as a memorial, which can actually be seen as a microcosm of the times.
In an upward shot, we see the plane native, followed by subtitles that take place in 1967, when Kai Tak Airport was still in use.
At this time, the only person in the picture has a flower in front of it, blooming in full bloom, director Yang Fan was born in 1947, in 1967 he was 20 years old, it is a fancy age, this beginning with a strong "to youth" flavor.
Then the film begins the first chapter: The Dream Mystery. The girl in yellow appears earlier than the protagonist, and the slow motion of seeing a woman in a cheongsam walking down the stairs must remind wong Kar-wai of "Fancy Years".
This is followed by a panoramic view of Kowloon, with the camera panning down to the north corner of the shore. The buildings in the painting, as well as the ships on the sea, are all black and white, and these no longer exist.
After a group of children watched Fan Ziming and Steven playing tennis against the air, this paragraph paid tribute to Antonioni's "Zoom" directed in 1966, Ziming and Steven's setting in the film is a fan, so it is reasonable to imitate the bridge section of the classic work.
Later, when Ziming took Meiling to see Audrey Hepburn's "Li Ren Xing", there was also a poster of "Enlargement" in the picture, which was translated as "Spring Break", and now the audience will probably have Wong Kar-wai in their minds.
Speaking of playing tennis, this is a performance without physical objects, after Ziming hit the "ball", the audience re-saw Kowloon and North Point with the perspective of the "ball", when the buildings and fishing boats have been colored, and the director with a strong sense of faith led the audience into the old era.
In this old era of characters, all the characters move very slowly, this kind of "once upon a time slow" effect is not through live-action shooting, and then use a lot of slow mirror to show, but in the form of animation to let the characters move slowly in the background, the pursuit is what Ziming said in the narration: In that old era, everything was elegant, everything was slow.
Ziming went to Jiyuantai No. 7 to help Mei Ling make up lessons for the first time, and the few shots of going up the stairs even captured a feeling of revisiting the old place, while Ziming was the first time to come to the North Point, perhaps these scenes have appeared in the director's mind for a long time.
Before the male and female protagonists meet, there is also an interlude, which is Ziming mistakenly breaking into Mrs. Mei's home. The character of Mrs. May is a person who is stuck in the past. His past masterpiece was Yu Ji, which was reminiscent of Cheng Dieyi. And he does have a "no crazy devil can't live" energy.
Looking at the pile of photos on his desk, the last one is the image of him after he got off the stage, and it can be seen that he is a man, but he is immersed in the glory of singing Hua Dan in the past, and now he is still dressed as a woman.
The cat with the yin and yang eyes, the color of the two eyes corresponded to the color of the two rings he wore on his hand. The cat is his spiritual portrayal, combining yin and yang.
After that, Ziming went downstairs to meet Mrs. Yu, and the two chatted about "Remembrance Like Water Years", and the whole story has been laid out in the posture of "remembrance".
At this point, the film gives me the feeling that it is like Malloy Sandor's novel "Candle Embers", the author is recounting the glory of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and recalling the aristocratic spirit of the past while narrating.
The book describes Vienna, the "capital of the world" at that time, as a tuning fork used for tuning, and once the name of the city is said, the tuning fork is sounded, and only those who can feel the beauty of the old era can hear the sound of the tuning fork, and others cannot hear it at all.
ZiMing and Mrs. Yu are the ones who heard the tuning fork of the old era at the same time, and they have a sharp mind. However, the film then begins to depict lust, which is again different from "Candle Embers".
After the first long conversation between the two, the film uses a story of Miaoyu being abducted by a flower picker in "Dream of the Red Chamber" to show Mrs. Yu's desire for Ziming, and even pays tribute to Imatoshi's "Red Hot Chili Peppers", directly depicting Miaoyu as Mrs. Yu's shameful skin bag and tearing it off on the spot.
Mrs. Yu said that she liked "Dream of the Red Chamber" the most, and was especially impressed by the adjective "intoxicated" in the book. Since then, the film has frequently appeared some props that blur the line of sight.
For example, the veil of Miaoyu, the white smoke that Ms. Simon spewed out when she smoked, the smoke from the big chimney of the ship in the movie "Fool's Ship", and the curtains blown by the wind in front of Mrs. Yu's window before the opening of the last erotic drama, these can make people temporarily unable to see reality, the will become weak, and then enter a state of "intoxication".
Why depict lust in the context of a reminiscence of a watery era? Perhaps you can look for clues from Mrs. Yu's background, the film says that Mrs. Yu was a progressive youth who participated in the revolution, but her current occupation is a luxury comprador, and her daughter Meiling finds it ironic that a thoughtful revolutionary woman is now bending over cosmetics and stockings.
The first time Ziming went to Mrs. Yu's house, she found that the calligraphy hanging on the wall was Lu Xun's poem, and on the table was Xiao Hong's "Biography of Hulan River", and then Mrs. Yu gave Ziming a tuition fee, and the books used to clip money were Lu Xun's "Scream", which were all books read by progressive youth, and Mrs. Yu was willing to let outsiders see.
However, she still secretly longed for the story of Miao Yu indulging in the story of the flower pickers abducting her in the "Dream of the Red Chamber" of the previous dynasty, which was not a selfish desire for outsiders, and even she would blame herself after she woke up.
Regarding the old era, the film uses four words to describe, the first three are erosion, decadence, and degeneration, perhaps in Yang Fan's heart, this nostalgia for the old era is as unbearable as lust. But the last word in the film to describe the old era is truth. Selfish desires are real to everyone and are difficult to cut off.
The film takes place in 1967, when the June 7 Riots broke out in Hong Kong, and many students and workers launched strikes and demonstrations against the British government in Hong Kong at the time. But the riot is only reduced to the background in the film, and the creators do not seem to be very interested in it, but are really interested in the erosion, decadence, and degenerate life.
Mrs. Yu looked at the demonstrators on the street and said that she had come from a chaotic world. Those days of fighting for ideals have now become the talk of her memories of her restless youth, which contains a sense of discouragement and a sense of guilt.
Once keen on social movements, but now indulged in their own selfish desires, although they have seen through the reality, but asking themselves, they still feel immoral. What's more, now that it is a cruel year, it has long been powerless to face the environment that is undergoing great changes around it, so I have to feel guilty and immerse myself in the memory.
Therefore, "Jiyuantai No. 7" is an honest and personal film. It's like Vienna in The Embers of a Candle, a tuning fork. Frankly speaking, at present, I personally can't hear the sound of this tuning fork, after all, the age depicted in the film is too far away from me.
But perhaps each generation has its own tuning fork, and once life reaches a specific stage, it will inevitably issue a sigh of Li Hou's mastery: it is still like the old days of swimming in the garden, and the car is like a flowing water horse. The flower moon is springing.