Abandoning routines and finding a way out “Diary of a Youth” opens the road to rebirth for Hong Kong films | Literature City

The child spiraled up the mottled stairs and reached the top of the building step by step.

He climbed up the low wall on the edge of the roof and sat down, as if overlooking the bustling city.

However, the cool and slow piano music reminds us that this is a sad passage.

What that means can be understood by viewers with a little experience.

Sure enough, after a moment’s pause, the child jumped up. Only half of the low wall and the empty, gloomy sky remain in the picture.

It seemed that in an instant, the audience’s heart was emptied out.

After a few seconds, another head poked out from behind the low wall, and there was a platform behind the low wall. The director made a not-so-funny joke on us.

As the suspense continued, the child raised his hands and cupped them in front of his mouth. Shout out to the world: Zheng Youjie, you must study hard!

The slow music continues. Similar music styles appear in “Everything About Lily Zhou”, “Bad Boy’s Sky”, “Black Swan”, “Young You” and “Guling Street Youth Murder”. It is often accompanied by cruel youth, depressed mood, boundless depression and impulse.

We cannot predict whether the child in front of us will get out of the predicament.

But at least, with “Diary of a Young Man”, it pays attention to the inner heart of the individual, and especially bravely exposes the illusion of middle-class elite life.

According to this, Hong Kong movies have hope to get out of the predicament.

01. Return to the individual, a way out of routines

The narrative of “Diary of a Youth” directly targets the violence caused by the original family, and the tragedy of a teenager falling from a building caused by school bullying. This is naturally worthy of focus and attention.

But I think the greatest significance of the film is actually to return to the individual’s heart, to return to the pain of family injury and growth.

In particular, it directly cuts through the surface of Hong Kong’s middle-class elite families, allowing us to see that “high-net-worth individuals” also have a hypocritical and sad side.

This is actually quite rare in Hong Kong movies. Everyone has long been disgusted with the Hong Kong movie routine of gunfire, bullets, and police chases.

And even for literary and artistic films that focus on personal circumstances, from Xu Anhua’s “Sister Peach”, “Man 40”, “Tin Shui Wai” series, Chen Guo’s “Made in Hong Kong” and “Durian Piao Piao” all the way to Weng Ziguang’s “Blood in Search of Plum Blossoms” and ” “Corridor of Justice”, as well as nostalgic works such as “Thieves of Time” and “Falling Water”, can also be regarded as combining the categories of Hong Kong literary films.

However, looking at these movies, they either show evil in extreme situations, or they show the gloomy joys and sorrows of low-level people. Just like Taiwan Province also has “Sunshine”, “Big Buddha Plaza” and so on.

However, the suffering of middle-class families and elites is deliberately avoided.

The areas ignored by literary and artistic works are often not without problems. It is more likely that they are too heavy and they dare not mention them easily.

The middle-class elite families in Hong Kong movies are exactly this kind of existence.

Because Hong Kong placed too much emphasis on efficiency in the past, almost everyone was pushed forward, like a series of roaring trains. If they stopped for even a moment, they would be left far behind by this international metropolis.

On the streets of Central, pedestrians walk in a hurry, with nervous and indifferent faces, thinking only of higher status and more salary.

Even if there is occasional compassion, it is only directed at the poor at the bottom. They are at the end of their rope, struggling and desperate, so they have to take desperate risks, causing tragedies one after another.

Those elites in finance, law, foreign trade, and commerce are too late to envy them. What pain and difficulties can they have?

New director Zhuo Yiqian focuses his camera on them, the elite represented by Cheng Zixiong (played by Cheng Zhongji). They are equally likely to have a terrible life.

Pay attention to the individual and maintain equal compassion. Don’t be biased because of personal wealth and status. This gave Hong Kong movies, which were stuck in routine trouble, a turnaround.

In fierce gun battles and street racing, the police and criminals are either involved in an “infernal affair” or a “cat-and-mouse game.” The movie routines created by John Woo, Andy Lau, and the heroes of the galaxy back then are becoming outdated.

Now we have “The Wandering Earth” and “Apotheosis of the Gods”, ordinary guns and bullets have lost their shocking power; twenty-seven years after Hong Kong’s return, gangsters and bandits have long disappeared, and there are not so many police and robbers killing people on the streets.

In “Diary of a Teenage”, Zheng Youjun, a bullied boy, fights back and fights his tormentor in the school toilet. Looking down from above on the fight between several teenagers, its practical significance and shocking effect are far greater than that of a lively street shootout.

Because art must ultimately show human nature, the suffering and counterattack of human beings in conflict.

It is precisely because of returning to individuals and giving up routines that Hong Kong movies have a way out.

02. Bloody youth, what growth should look like

“Diary of a Youth” shows different aspects of bloody youth, including family injury, campus bullying, and cruel growth, directly hitting the current social pain points.

Let’s talk about family injuries first. The father in the film, Zheng Zixiong, brings together many characteristics of pathological patriarchy.

He is inconsistent internally and externally, and extremely hypocritical. On the outside, there are social elites who are elegant, gentle, rational and decent, “there are great scholars in talking and laughing, and there are no idle people in dealings”;

He has a violent temper and is prone to violence. Because of a donation of 100,000 yuan, he punched and kicked his wife in the middle of the night, and his children hid in bed and shivered. He was still angry, so he opened the sheet again, took out the child and beat him violently;

He is unstable and obviously partial. All the good resources are piled on the well-behaved and obedient younger brother, while the stupid older brother is beaten and scolded, and humiliated in various ways until it leads to tragedy.

The film meticulously presents the entire process of Zheng Youjie, who endured violence, from sunshine to despair.

He also wants to please adults and conform to social standards, feels pressured by his own grades, and will take the initiative to make breakfast to please his parents.

However, his father’s violence and prejudice made him live in a permanent state of panic and tension. His cowardly and selfish mother could only stand by and watch, unable to help.

Because he was beaten for failing a grade, his mother and younger brother were doing their homework safely.

Because he was slow to learn the piano, he was severely reprimanded and belittled by his father, who even replaced his gentle female teacher;

The outstanding younger brother received a home visit. He was taken out of the house by the nanny and hung out in the restaurant to avoid affecting the family image;

I stayed up late studying for exams, and ended up looking dazed and pale. I was scolded by my mother and made to stand by my teacher.

His young body could no longer bear so much suffering. He stood on the edge of the roof, seemingly unable to find any motivation to continue living.

Let’s talk about school bullying. The main bearers are young Zheng Youjun and Cake.

In order to get closer to the problem student, Teacher Zheng took the initiative to call him “Cake”, but still received hostility.

It wasn’t until the squad leader pointed it out later. “Cake” is a homophone for “Van Gogh”, and the student’s hearing impairment is similar to Van Gogh’s “one ear” to express the malicious intent of ridicule.

This is the implicit bullying among teenagers, which together with the explicit violent beatings, makes the children bear the strong malice and harm from their peers.

In the corridor, on the stairs, in the bathroom, insulting nicknames were blurted out, and the hot-blooded teenagers did it if they refused, creating too many violent scenes and tragic scenes.

Real-life bullying videos are more distressing than scenes in movies, and they are far more shocking than the roaring guns and spraying plasma in cop movies.

Because this is the reality we are experiencing, and this is what our children are suffering.

It must no longer be easily ignored.

The third is the pain and cruelty of the growing process, which is not much mentioned in the film. But looking at the scars on the squad leader’s arm, Youjie crying while holding his brother, and the depression and hesitation of teenagers such as Cake and Youjun, it still makes people feel a lot.

There are many movies about cruel youth. The first ones that come to mind are “All About Lily Zhou” and “Bad Boy’s Sky”. I also highly recommend Mayday’s drama version of “Summer Light Years” MV, which is also the most melancholy about youth in my heart. scene.

03. Abandon extremes and be impartial and beautiful

Regarding the parent-child relationship and family relationship, it can be extended a little further.

There are currently some extreme contexts and behaviors.

The Confucian culture that has been followed for thousands of years has given us a tradition of conforming to the mainstream and actively competing.

This is also a powerful driving force for social progress.

In particular, China’s rapid development over the past four decades has provided a broad stage and massive opportunities for everyone to display freely.

As economic development gradually stabilizes and slows down, social classes become increasingly stable, and new counterattack opportunities are visibly reduced.

As a result, some people began to question the meaning of being proactive, and some parents hurt their children because they were too anxious.

Zheng Zixiong in the film shows the extreme state of the “chicken boy”, and the lines he said personally are typical remarks.

If you are not good, you will be beaten until you are good. Success is all forced.

What supports this theory is his own struggle and counterattack from the bottom. The so-called “path dependence”.

This set of remarks offends many people, especially young people who are involved in involution.

They preach and practice the idea of ​​no marriage, no childbearing, no struggle, completely lying down, and only maintaining the most basic state of existence. This is used to resist the “strong man’s thinking” theory like Zheng Zixiong’s. It also resists traditional culture and mainstream values, expressing individuality while evading responsibility.

The two extreme opinions often clash on the Internet, and there seems to be no room for maneuver.

But in fact, it doesn’t need to be so extreme.

Our ancients used the “golden mean” to explain these principles of life clearly.

There is nothing wrong with living enthusiastically and competing actively. Society encourages a hundred flowers to bloom, but there are certainly mainstream values ​​that guide young people to grow up healthily.

Participating in competition does not mean “having to win”. In the process of forging ahead, find the path that suits you, focus on moving forward with all your strength, do not compare with others, just hope to constantly surpass yourself;

While working hard, you should also enjoy life, maintain a happy and full mood, and never forget to relax and be “relaxed” while struggling;

At the same time, “do your best and obey destiny”, do what you can, and leave it to fate and time to achieve whatever results you can achieve.

There is no need to roll in too much, and there is no need to lie flat and give up. What’s more, with the confidence to survive, our options have become extremely rich and multifaceted.

Return to the heart, respect individuals, pay attention to every child and adult, and hope that every life will be rich and passionate, and that there will be no more tragedies in the world.

This is probably also the final vision of the director of “Diary of a Youth”.

–>

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