Life is full of variety. After four years of anticipation, the first film trilogy directed by Cao Baoping, "Through the Ocean of Fire", finally met the audience (the first two parts were "Fiery Heart" and "She Married", which has never seen the light of day). Hereinafter referred to as "Passion Ocean". At present, the box office has exceeded one billion, and now its performance in theaters is very eye-catching, although it cannot be compared with several blockbusters in the summer file, but there is no doubt that it will eventually exceed 500 million (according to the ** data of Maoyan Professional Edition), and it is likely to become the best box office in director Cao Baoping's works.
After watching the movie, I felt very satisfied, this year's domestic films performed well, and Cao Baoping kept his position. The movie is adapted from Lao Huang's short story of the same name**, which tells the story of fisherman Lao Wang who returns to China to track down **, Nana's boyfriend Li Miaomiao, after learning that his daughter Lingna died in the closet of a hotel in Japan. The story is inspired by a true case in 2014 in which a female student studying in the United States was murdered by her boyfriend. The full text is about 40,000 words, the style is relatively traditional, and it is a story about "family emotions and revenge".
The biggest conflict in the plot focuses on the class difference between Lao Wang and Li Miaomiao's mother, Mei Ling, and tells the story of ordinary people and powerful people who bypass the law and confront each other. Considering the level of the director, as well as the joining of Huang Bo, Zhou Xun, Zu Feng, Yan Ni and other actors, shooting according to the main story line of "avenging my daughter", it can be determined that this movie is likely to be a commercial genre film, and it is extremely appreciable. The first half is gripping, as evidenced by the thrilling murder chases, not to mention the thrilling scenes of fishing under tornado-ravaged skies. In the second half, the film ventures into more profound territory.
The director discarded the climax in ** and weakened the story thread. In addition to the role of the father, Lao Wang's other identities have been diluted, and the whole story only focuses on the two aspects of desperate fishing and fierce pursuit of the murderer, and the role of his daughter Lena has been further expanded;At the same time, the story of Meiling's mother and son is also appropriately enriched. Jin Meteorite and Jin Lina, Li Miaomiao and Meiling, the contrast between the two is in stark contrast. Like a glittering dagger, it directly hits the "stubborn disease" of parent-child relationships in East Asia, completing a new upgrade of the 2013 masterpiece "Dog Thirteen": more crazy, more bloody, and more naked.
In "Dog Thirteen", the dog refers to the girl, the girl is also a dog, and the father is an old dog, and this dog-like ** world has to convey the sincere communication in the name of love: I hit you because I love you. Fish. Lao Liu (played by: Liu Zengzhi), as a captain, sails to the open sea every day, risking his life to catch fish. His only goal is to support his daughter, Nannan, who lives in Japan and is an international student. For Lao Liu, fish is like money, and it also represents the precious love he can give, just like fresh and rich fish.
In Japan, Nannan worked hard to start a new life, learning Xi Japanese, and working as a ...... in restaurants. The film depicts Nannan's life while studying abroad in Japan, mentioning her birthday, which is also the Dragon Boat Festival in Japan (the fifth day of the fifth month of May). In the picture, the tour guide is describing the local customs and Xi to the tourists. On this day, every household will hang a koi flag. These flags are made of cloth or silk with a hollow center and come in three colors: red, black, and blue. Red represents the mother, cyan blue represents the boy, and black represents the father. （p.s.The following contains spoilers, so read with caution if you are not watching the movie).
At this time, Nannan was throwing a large bag of five coins into the water to make a wish, hoping to find his other half. Then, a close-up flashes by: a black koi flag falls into the water, is soaked and slowly sinks down. Lao Liu experienced life and death, never thought that Nannan would be stabbed 17 times, although the injury was not fatal, but excessive blood loss and finally unfortunately died, she quietly curled up in the closet, on the counter is she wrote a mysterious and strange symbol with bloodstains, like the sun, but also like flowers. Are these symbols an indictment of that nasty boyfriend?
Of course, this is not the case, the truth will not be revealed until the end, Nannan was not killed by others, but died of excessive blood loss after self-harm. 17-year-old Nannan stabbed himself 17 times. And what really caused Nannan to give up his life was his father "Lao Liu", who had been harshly disciplined, restrained and neglected for a long time. The movie constantly breaks the main line of Lao Liu's revenge through Nannan's diary memories, ostensibly to assist the audience in increasing emotions, lamenting the misfortune of the girl over flowers, and feeling indignant at the bad *** boyfriend. But if we start with the ending, we will find that many dialogues and details are alluding to "Daddy Liu".
Especially her ex-wife Gu Hong (played by: Yan Ni), as soon as she spoke, she was not concerned about her daughter's condition, but complaining, not like a father at all. In order to find out the whereabouts of their daughter, the two met in Japan, and Gu Hong did the same, facing Lao Liu angrily. Even at his daughter's funeral, Lao Jin saw that he was enchanted and stuffed the statue to Gu Hong, and then left in a hurry, only letting out a scream:"You really don't look like a person. "It can be seen that the lack of communication, the lack of inquiry, and only accusation, is precisely the root cause of the failure of this marriage. Gu Hong's character, Uncle Meat is still very strange.
In the original work, there are not many descriptions of Gu Hong, but there are not too few. She once helped Lao Jin solve the problem of pursuing Li Miaomiao, because her economic conditions were better than Jin's. In addition, in **, Gu Hong was separated because she refused to have children with her current husband. However, in the movie version, she turned out to be a transparent person who didn't care about her ex-husband's harm and obsession. Let's talk about the father and daughter again. The relationship between Lao Jin and his daughter, in the words of the director, is a "self-righteousness" and a "self-righteousness". He thought it was love, but he didn't know that she couldn't feel it at all.
Therefore, those warm pictures in Lao Jin's memory, in the eyes of children, have another interpretation, such as forcing Nana to learn to swim, such as forcibly giving Nana to his ex-wife, such as driving away the cat that Nana wants to adopt. Even the most impressive scene of his "good daughter": he physically cooled down the wet towel on Nana's face, and listened to his father's words to "endure it", and endured it until he almost suffocated. Nana's inner words changed from the initial lively "like" to the later hesitant and gloomy "love".
A child who does not receive solid, certain, and sustained love from his parents is tragic, and if he takes the wrong step, he or she will be trapped in this uneasy sense of wandering for the rest of his life. Those 17 knives are not only anger, but also anger and resilience. The most realistic scene about "Daddy's Power" in the movie is also related to "fish": Li Miaomiao plans to "escape" to Germany with the help of her mother, her mother chases her, the police chase her, and of course Lao Jin is also chasing. At this time, the coastal city was hit by a storm, and the tornado swept the fish in the sea into the sky, and the fish fell with the heavy rain, smashed the highway, smashed the car glass, and smashed it in the face.
All the characters are crazy, and this splashing fish is the spread and suppression of paternal power. Because, the child who was distorted by his father's power was not only Nana, but also Li Miaomiao, his father Li Lie (played by Zu Feng) was deeply annoyed by his naughtiness, and used money to restrain him and insult him. "Daddy Style" does not distinguish between men and women, and is actually a distorted representation of motherhood in the movie. In Chinese-language movies, Li Miaomiao created a rare image of a rebellious and bad teenager.
His behavior was extremely **, and in his childhood, he failed to fulfill his parents' wish to take him to Japan, and caused chaos in his grandmother's hospital to cause the death of the old man;He pushed his half-sister off the trampoline, leaving her paralyzed in the lower half of her body;He sends a wacky birthday present, scares his sister and hurts ...... againIn addition, there are also ** behaviors such as frying frogs and boiling turtles into instant noodles. Therefore, it is most plausible that he is suspected of "killing" Nana. And the birth of this delinquent teenager is inseparable from the influence of family factors. His father, Li Lie, usually solves problems with the help of money and power, and he also has a gang of rough helpers.
It is reasonable to suspect that the "Dad" when he was strangled by Lao Jin at the Comic Con was conveying that Li Miaomiao was often violently attacked by his father. And her mother Jing Lan (played by Zhou Xun) is the most critical character. When Li Lie picked her up from the airport to discuss how to deal with the ** that her son was involved in, the two began to quarrel in the luxury car, and Jing Lan objected to handing over her son to **. Suddenly, they stopped the car. Then she got into the car that was following Lao Jin, and took the initiative to reveal the identity of the other party and began negotiations, asking the other party to give her three days to find her son.
In fact, she already knew that her son was in her grandfather's abandoned house in the mountains, and everything was just delaying time, in order to solve the visa problem. Knowing that her ex-husband was eavesdropping and stalking her, Lao Jin chased after her, and she did not flinch. Drop off *** lock up the old gold. Her rich earrings gradually faded into smaller sizes, and she gradually took off her disguise, revealing the she-wolf's true face. One is a brutal father who is moved by himself and treats power as a **;One is a paranoid mother who is strong on the outside but fragile on the inside, unable to face failures and flaws. The personalities of the two are themselves distorted, and the root cause is of course not their children, but the failure of their respective intimate relationships.
Both are divorced, have been single for a long time, and devote all their attention to their children. One is based on strict teaching, and the other is based on doting. Together, the two of them seem to be the most ordinary husband and wife duo in East Asian society. The lack of soul makes it impossible for parents to raise children who are physically and mentally healthy. The film work, which has been graduated for four years, was only pushed to the audience this year, and almost missed the opportunity to "live in my lifetime". Some speculate that it is because of the strict age limit. In the trailer of this year's "Angry Sea", there is such a sentence: "Minors are cautious".
The reason for the automatic classification may be that there are some intimidating and intimate plots in the film, or uncomfortable gore, but not too much. But I think the biggest limitation is that the film ultimately exposes the deep parent-child problem in people's hearts, which is an unspeakable secret pain in the hearts of East Asians. The restriction is not only in the content, but also in the fact that it touches the sore spot in people's hearts. In Chinese families, there is an inexplicably complex and unspeakable relationship between parents and children, and we often choose to ignore these emotions or even choose to forget them.
Director Cao Baoping said in an interview that he doesn't need to instill positive energy, or even set up conflict-filled lines like in "Dog Thirteen". This time, he relied almost entirely on plot reversals and character movements to complete the work. The thought that a madly vengeful father is a black hole of love in his own right, staring at a distant child is chilling, but deeply grounded in reality. Spend a lifetime ** childhood trauma, this is the gloomy trajectory that many East Asian adults keep repeating. Back to the title, "Wading through the Sea of Wrath".
In the original book, it means to accept calmly that the father hid ** in the bottom of the ship and sent it to Japan to receive the punishment it deserves. But in the movie, I felt that there was something to be desired. In the film, after Lao Jin learned of his daughter's death, he experienced 5 different degrees of "sea-wading" experience. The first time was in front of Li's house, stepping through the pool. And then the sea of rage spreads. The second time, I think it was a typhoon day, as if the sea was pouring in, and the clouds were thick, and a group of people seemed to be at the bottom of the sea. The third time, on the trading day, Jing Lan drove frantically into the sea, and Lao Jin sneaked into it.
The fourth time, Lao Jin learned of Li Miaomiao's life experience, took Li Lie to sea and had a showdown with him. In these three "wading into the sea", he took away Li Miaomiao (the cause of sin), saved Jing Lan (motherhood), and defeated Li Lie (violent father). The last time, "Lao Jin rowed", let go of Li Miaomiao, and imprisoned himself in the lighthouse, which was an indefinite period he gave himself. Lao Jin is willing to bear the guilt. But guess what, will Nana forgive him?Old money that is familiar with the facts, how many can there be in reality?On the road of life, we often encounter various difficulties and challenges.
Sometimes, we feel guilty and remorse for our momentary mistakes, but that doesn't mean we should be bothered by them. Instead, we should be brave enough to face and learn from them, and face the challenges ahead with a more mature mindset.