I feel that the Taiwan drama has a bit of a revival taste.
Following the high-profile works "The Distance Between Us and Evil" and "Want to See You", another Taiwanese drama that is so real that it wants to cry is worth chasing - "The Man Who Works".
"The Man Who Works" is adapted from the best-selling book of the same name by Taiwanese writer Lin Liqing, also produced by the original team of "The Distance Between Us and Evil", and Li Mingshun, the Emperor of Admiralty Vision, joined with Ke Shuyuan, You Anshun and a number of mesozoic powerful actors.
Workers are also known as "migrant workers", they generally engage in construction workers, factory workers, cleaners and other jobs that are considered undignified by the public, and are the most easily ignored groups in society.
In order to restore such a real worker's life, the crew set the shooting site directly on a construction building. In the play, in order to show a better performance effect, Li Mingshun also deliberately gained 10 kilograms and raised a large belly. At the same time, the director required that the dialogue should use authentic Hokkien, and the protagonists practiced hard for a long time to finally achieve the natural effect in the play.
As the first worker-themed TV series in Taiwan, "The Man Who Works" really shows the real life of the little people at the bottom. Among them, there are laughter, tears, warmth, and parting, as if everything in life is condensed in a short length of six episodes.
There are four protagonists in the play, namely the two brothers Ah Qi and Ah Qin, and the co-workers Chang Ge and Ah Quan.
Ah Qi (Li Mingshun) and his younger brother Ah Qin (Ke Shuyuan) are iron workers on the construction site, responsible for welding some reinforced cement, which is not only hard but also dangerous.
They are busy every day, and there is a seriously ill and bedridden old father who needs to be cared for by Ah Qi's wife, and the son is also helping the family to make up for it.
The family's life was already very poor, and Ah Qi still had unrealistic dreams of getting rich in his heart. In order to get rich, he studied investment all day long, wanted to do some side business to make a lot of money, in his words, "there are dreams are the most beautiful, hope to follow."
He studied the pill business, calculating 500 pieces of a jar of elixir, and he could sell 5,000 in a change of hands. As a result, tens of thousands of dollars were spent, and several large boxes of elixirs were placed in the home and became idle.
I also tried to invest in the doll machine, tossing and turning, and being cheated out of tens of thousands of pieces... Every time the family had a little money, it was tossed clean by Ah Qi, but fortunately, he always had his younger brother Ah Qin by his side to help take care of it.
Compared with his brother's liveliness and optimism, his younger brother Achin is more pragmatic and reliable, he works conscientiously at the construction site every day, and his work has always been the best at the construction site, and he often helps his brother work overtime.
Although Achin is usually silent, as long as his brother is out in trouble, he is responsible for the finishing, and there is no half a complaint. Even if he knows that the eldest brother is making unrealistic "dreams of getting rich" every day, he is left to his own devices.
In addition to his younger brother Achin, Ah Qi also has two co-workers at the construction site. The older one is called Brother Chang, who is kind and weak, and is the small contract foreman of this construction site, and he has a well-behaved and sensible daughter and a wife Chang sister-in-law who works on the construction site.
The other younger is Ah Quan, who drives a crane at the construction site, and although he is the only one of several people who does not have to support his family, his salary has always been moonlight, resulting in no fixed accommodation now, and he can only sleep in the car every day.
Such a team of three people became the "three fools" of the construction site.
On this day, Ah Qi went to the temple with his brothers to worship the Buddha and pray for peace, and he was very sensitive to "business opportunities" and smelled a hint of wanting to get rich.
Ah Qi saw more and more banknotes in the donation box, and he decided to buy a Buddhist temple. Ah Qi got in touch with a Thai, and the three of them raised a deposit of 150,000 yuan together.
After a period of blind work, they dressed up and prepared to welcome the statue back, but they did not expect that the statue would be detained when they crossed the customs.
However, things are far from so simple, the police further investigation, learned that the original Thai is a liar, 150,000 deposit directly hit the water, the three people's dream of getting rich is once again shattered.
Although he did not succeed in achieving great wealth, it did not make Ah Qi dispel the delusion in his heart. A sudden heavy rain caused one more crocodile visitor on the construction site, adhering to the logic of "chicken hatching eggs", and the "three fools" hit the crocodile with the idea of getting rich. They tried their best to keep crocodiles in the rooftop bathtubs of the construction site, just so that one day they could raise the crocodiles and make a big profit in leather bags.
I thought they could finally get rich this time, but I didn't expect that a few days later, the crocodile accidentally fell to his death... Because of the feelings, the "three fools" not only did not want to peel the little crocodile, but also held a grand funeral for it.
From buying Buddha statues to open temples, raising crocodiles to make leather bags, to picking up porcelain as antiques, doing recycling and buying lottery tickets... Looking at the whole play, Ah Qi, Chang Ge and Ah Quan all seem to be dreaming of making a fortune unrealistically, and they repeatedly toss and turn and repeatedly fail and are deceived.
But in fact, this is the screenwriter's perspective of absurd and playful, to reflect the plight and self-help of the people at the bottom. They are eager to get rich, nothing more than to take care of their families and make the people around them live better.
Ah Qi said that the first thing he did after he had money was to buy a plane and fly around with his wife; Chang Ge dreamed of sending his daughter to study abroad; Ah Quan wanted to buy an expensive designer bag to give to the girl he liked...
However, the prerequisite for achieving these things is that they must be supported by money, and in order to survive, they sometimes have to bow to reality and even erase their dignity.
In the play, the reality of the characters at the bottom of society is further magnified.
The "three fools" worker clam was pierced into the calf by a steel pipe in an accident, which was originally an ordinary construction site accident, but because of his encounter, it became unusual.
The protagonist and his party send the injured clam to the hospital, which requires payment before it can be treated. The reason is that there are often migrant workers who run away after seeing a doctor on the pretext of not bringing enough money, so they have to pay the fee first.
In order to protect the construction site and the workers, clams chose not to call the police, and as a result, not only did they not succeed in getting the medical expenses of the work injury, but even the wage site for the month of the accident was also deducted.
Although the common wage arrears do not appear at the construction site in the play, the monthly site director will always steal a few cards when the cash payment is paid, and the long-term slippery head, the workers have never made a sound in their eyes.
There are many more small details about the working environment at the bottom: the site director asks the workers to bear the fines for the gravel truck in their personal names; the box lunches on the site are made several hours in advance, because the weather is hot and the workers have their hands, and the meals are often spoiled...
To use Ah Quan's words to describe the bitterness of the workers, it is "those who do this business rely on the heavens to eat, and it is the heavens who decide whether to give us dignity or not."
In Bajie's view, although the protagonists in the play are humble and cautious in surviving in the social class, they all live out the kindest appearance:
The spicy personality of Chang Sister-in-law knife mouth tofu heart, will take the initiative to advance money for workers who have no money to treat diseases;
Chang Ge seems to know that his shoes are dirty, afraid that he will stain the floor of other people's stores, so he puts his shoes outside before entering the store;
When Ah Qi finally realized his "dream of getting rich" and took two million of his sons to accept everyone's bitter demands at the construction site, at that moment he was full of pride and braved innocence.
But in the end, he hid the money from his family and gave it to the wife of a colleague who died in the accident. Obviously, in the first few episodes, we can all know Ah Qi's obsession with making a fortune, but we still can't bear to see others suffering.
These are all the innocent and lovely sides of the "workmen", no matter how embarrassing life is, they cannot crush their compassion and kindness.
We've all heard countless stories of hardship in life, about helplessness, bitterness, and even despair. But the people in the story have never given up on a life of hard work...
As Ah Qi said, "Life is to have hope, whether he is a worker or a god." ”
*Some of the pictures are from the Internet
Edited by ∕ 5yan
Picture Assistant/YC Riddle