Edited ∣ Cao Zhen
A Japanese short-tailed cat with coordinates in Qingdao. (Sina Weibo: @元禄缭乱)
Director: Yasuo Lowering the Flag │ Drama │ Japan │ 1999-6 Starring: Ken Takakura, Shinobu Ohtake, Ryoko Hiromitsu, Masanobu Ando
Minus fifteen degrees Celsius in Minami-Furano, Hokkaido, the melodious whistle whistle whistles between the heavens and the earth, breaking through the snowy silence, and the steam train gallops along the railway tracks between the vast heavens and the earth, bringing the only vitality to the silent nature. Trains and railways, each departure is like writing a free poem, full of passengers back to the haunting homeland, or rushing to a distant place full of ideals and unknowns.
The end of the train is the bean-like inconspicuous Homai Station, the town's mining industry is gradually abandoned, the Hoso Mai Line can not reproduce the impressive performance of transporting coal mines in that year, and is scheduled to be scrapped next year; the station manager Sato Etomatsu, who has been in the wind and candle for many years, has worked diligently and dutifully for most of his life, but he has also reached the age of understanding Kokō.
Otomatsu is the 202nd character of actor Ken Takakura.
1999's Railroad Man was his return to the screen after five years of silence. Ken Takakura once said: I have acted in more than two hundred movies, half of which are playing myself. This highly respected superstar threw himself into the soul of the old stationmaster, and when I noticed the age spots on the stationmaster's hand, I realized that Takakura Ken was really old, and the one-hour and fifty-minute film seemed to be the epitome of his own life.
For decades, Sato Otomatsu could not move to lead the last train at seven o'clock into the station, and he was accustomed to waiting for six minutes in the severe cold of the wind and snow; when retirement was imminent, he frankly said: "I only know about railways, and I can't be useful anywhere else." This simple, one-sided man decided that only a black coat with a standing collar and a proper uniform hat could reflect the value of his life.
Ken Takakura has also described his profession this way: film actors are the most comfortable job, which is why, because they can warm the film, integrate the soul into it, and get rewards.
When the hotel's tumbler mother-in-law and grandson Min Xing asked Yi Song to go to the small restaurant next to the station, Yi Song did not want to retort: "Nonsense, who will take care of that station." Even the young girl Yukiko died of fever in the evening of the middle of winter, and when she died in the evening, Yi Song also stayed at work, failed to see the child's last look, and silently accepted his wife Shizue's desperate rebuke: You actually waved a small flag to greet her! But this man has always taken the duties of the station manager as the highest responsibility, and even endured the pain in the work log as usual: There is no abnormality today.
Coincidentally, Ken Takakura's parents and brother both died while he was filming, but he has been able to see the death of his loved ones openly. "In my heart, I have always had a very strong idea, that is, controlling my feelings and investing in my career is something that can be proud of."
Ken Takakura did. He was extremely engaged in acting, and in "Hakkodayama", the audience saw him rolling in the snow; when filming "Festival of Lakes and Forests", he only hung a six-foot-long crotch cloth and flew into the sea in the middle of winter; in the first month before the start of filming of "Railroad Man", Takakura Ken wore a costume and stood for a long time in front of the station where the location was filmed. Under his dedication, the film won three awards at the 23rd Japan Academy Awards for Best Actor, Actress and Best Film, and delivered excellent answers.
There is a line in the movie: "I listened to my father and became a railroadman." Whether it is a steam locomotive or an electric locomotive, it doesn't matter, I just want the motherland to stand up again, so I regard the railway crew as a lifelong profession and have no regrets at all. The stationmaster who has bowed to the railway cause all his life, although the post is ordinary, there is a noble spirit of "loyalty" and "righteousness" that shines slightly in his hands and feet.
The film was filmed from January to March, and in his later years, "Ah Jian" had no complaints about the harsh shooting environment even though Delong Wangzun was respected. It is this "spirit" that allows him and Otomatsu to guard the glory of the cause together.
At the beginning of the film, a melodious female voice hummed Etoshi Tomoe's famous song "Waltz of Tennessee", and in the family life full of warmth and happiness, his wife Shizue often hummed the song softly in a nasal voice. It is said that this was Ken Takakura's proposal, and no matter where he heard the song, his heart would beat faster and his heart would fluctuate, because singer Etoshi Tomoe emi was Takakura Ken's irreplaceable ex-wife.
Shizue can't wait to jump off the rails and share the joy of pregnancy with Otoson, she lies in her husband's arms like a bird and doesn't go, grabs her husband's uniform hat, and asks her husband to say to her, "You are so great", a good couple of Qinser and Naru. In the black-and-white shots that symbolize memories, only Shizue's orange vest is warm and bright; Emi Etoshi Ishi, Ken Takakura's first love, and the only lover in his life, this righteous hero who has played many screen roles has only starred in one love story in his life. However, after marriage, Takakura Ken was as taciturn as Otomatsu, and rarely showed tenderness to his wife, and the wife's professionalism caused fierce friction with her husband's machismo. Marriage can have the affection of the sea oath mountain alliance, but it may not have a smooth harmony, even the husband singing with the woman's shizuk has the hidden pain of perennial infertility, and Jiang Lizhi Huimei, who wants to re-emerge from the jianghu, does not know how many tears have been spilled.
Three young and lovely Yukiko came to send the last warmth to the father who was hanging on to each other; Eli Tomoemi became pregnant in 1962, but suffered from pregnancy poisoning and had to undergo abortion surgery. The two flew apart in 1971, and Ken Takakura was doomed to be childless. Even if he teased his mother: "I am much stronger than you think, many women like me." But after the filming, he was alone like a lone goose, loving to find comfort for himself during the trip.
Looking at his wife's warm and silky remains, Yi Song did not shed tears, not the indifference and ruthlessness of others, but in the every move of enduring sadness, he further tore his broken heart; Jiang Lizhi Huimei was depressed after divorce, and he died of vomiting due to alcoholism caused by a large number of vomiting, vomit blocking his throat and suffocating, only 45 years old. It is said that Ken Takakura stared at the portrait of his ex-wife for a long time, without uttering a word or uttering a word.
Suffering from the grief that goes deep into the bone marrow and cannot be repeated, the image of the ex-wife has been sublimated, diving into the good memories, and has a deeper understanding of the joy of the past, and the short happiness becomes eternal in the long thoughts. Ken Takakura read life in the death parting, and also knows how to cherish women, "I don't know when to meet people who really love, to meet people who really want to cherish, try to keep a distance, and bury that true feeling in the bottom of your heart for a long time." "He who understands the weight of love and life can interpret the back of Yi Song's taciturn back into a rugged mountain."
In 1985, Mariko Hayashi published a novel based on the grief of the two men, which was titled Waltz in Tennessee.
"When you live through the three deaths of your parents and wife, you become a photographer." Araki says, "Then, when your beloved daughter also dies, you can become a poet." "The Otomatsu of the Year of Ear Shun fell to the vast earth really clean, and only Takakura Ken, who had traversed the vicissitudes, could communicate with it." The afterglows of "normal rear" and "normal trumpet" echoed on the lonely snow field, and what matched this scene was a wisp of green smoke-like lonely breath.
Hearing that the steam locomotive that had accompanied him for many years was to be sent to a museum or a railway park, Yi Song blurted out: "Then I will also be displayed in the museum." On location, when he heard that the suspension of the railway line had changed from a movie to a reality, Ken Takakura suddenly walked out, wearing the hat of a railroadman, and walked back and forth around the train. Neither the director nor the crew stepped forward to stop it.
The train carrying the soul of Otomatsu was driving on the endless railway tracks, and the hissing of the steam whistle broke through the long sky, like a long song when crying, making people have the urge to choke. It is said that on the night after the filming of the film, the men all cried. Ken Takakura brilliantly portrayed Otomatsu's life realm of "replacing anger with waving a flag, replacing tears with whistles, and replacing shouts with inner calls." This film, which ranks fourth in the top ten of the "Movie Shunbun", really touched people's hearts, and we pay tribute to Sato Otomatsu, more like a generation of movie banners: Mr. Takakura Ken.
What about Ken Takakura after performing Otomatsu? Originally planned to use "A Thousand Miles to Ride Alone" to a satisfactory ending, but in 12 years, he cooperated with Kang Nan of the Flag "To Dear You". We are still looking forward to the sword is not old, still with "men's silent feelings", twilight to give us surprises. But this representative figure of Japanese cinema, the idol of a generation of Asian women, has died of lymphoma on November 10, 2014, leaving more than 100 films for us to sigh and remember, but what we really miss is not his fame throughout Asia, but the rare simplicity and unpretentiousness of his character and life.