Soon the media also reported on the co-production "Happy Family".
"Li Yi's production must be a high-quality product. It still has the original taste and the original formula. The film "Happy Family" is a tragic comedy with laughter and tears!" - Huaguo Film Report.
""Happy Family" bursts into laughter and tears in just a moment!" - Penguin Entertainment.
"The bitter history of family love in "Happy Family" made me laugh and cry. It is director Li Yi's iconic tear-jerking film. I highly recommend it!" - "Watching Movies"
Wait, wait, wait, it can almost be said that there is a lot of praise.
Of course, this must be due to the fact that the quality of the movie "Happy Family" itself is indeed good. In addition, this movie can be said to be supported by Huaying, as well as Li Yi's own fame and reputation, so it has created, There are almost no negative reviews.
At the same time, film critics also began to interpret the film from different perspectives.
A famous Hong Kong film critic wrote: "I never thought that I would end up crying because of this movie. As a monster walking in the city and enjoying loneliness, we should all learn to endure loneliness alone and shed tears." All turned up high.
What makes a being whose instinct is to survive choose to commit suicide instead of violating his instinct? ——This is what I thought when I saw the first scene of "Happy Family" - the movie starts with a scene where the male protagonist Shang Wan is crying while stuffing a lot of sleeping pills into his mouth. Only when I saw it later did I realize that it was loneliness.
Yes, loneliness is the reason why many people choose to leave this world. They have no relatives, no lovers, no friends... But when Shang Wan’s single photo at the end of the movie shows his family (if you want to know why, go watch the movie), Only now did I know that separation does not mean non-existence, and loneliness does not mean loneliness. It is just that we have forgotten or did not feel it. In fact, emotions have always been around us, but in an invisible form. However, you can’t say it doesn’t exist if you can’t see it. Isn’t air the best example?
In fact, what makes people lonely nowadays is often not loneliness, but being among noisy crowds, but unable to feel the emotional surround and spiritual communication. Do you blame society for being indifferent? But isn’t society made up of individuals like you and me? Do we have to realize and feel that they are actually around us only at the moment of separation? So please cherish the people and love around you, talk more with your relatives, lovers, and friends, and you can feel everyone's love, because people will always leave, but the memories will follow you throughout your life.
Maybe you and I are destined to be lonely, but you and I will never be lonely.
Closer to home, in this movie, director Li Yi once again taught everyone a lesson. It turns out that the plot of a movie can be very simple, and the story can also be familiar.
But how to tell a story well and through whom to tell it is an art. I have always felt that this is the essence of a good movie.
I once read a sentence: People nowadays are trying to make the language of communication simple and clear. However, once this happens, the language of communication loses its meaning, because the semantics are not clear, so communication is necessary and possible.
There are actually two meanings in this. One is that human thought itself is dynamic, and human words cannot completely represent a person’s current emotions or opinions. The so-called think twice before acting actually means letting people think twice before acting. Behavior becomes reasonable and controllable.
Secondly, today's human beings are becoming less and less sociable or unsociable. Maybe they are too busy, or they don't want to spend time getting to know new people and new things.
This is why there are always various misunderstandings between people, which leads to various conflicts and regrets.
People always try their best to hide their unknown side and selectively show their relatively good side.
Therefore, from a human perspective, once the semantics are expressed clearly and misunderstandings are revealed, things will become clear. However, from a cinematic perspective, this is not lasting enough to shock people.
Therefore, there is ghost culture in the movie.
Ghost is a fictitious cultural symbol of mankind. Its most intuitive explanation is the spiritual residue left in the world after death.
Eastern culture attaches great importance to ghosts, and heaven and earth often express the grief of the living for the deceased. This is actually a regret that can never be fulfilled.
Including support for parents, pursuit of dreams, desire for love, anger against deception, etc. When a person is alive, he will have the opportunity to complete all these regrets, but once he passes away, everything will be in vain.
This gives the movie the best way of expression, and the film and television symbols always allow us to have emotional resonance, not just a cup of bland boiled water.
Therefore, creating conflict is the best way.
There have been regrets, those words that have not been spoken, those efforts that have not been put into practice, and those people who have never helped each other, are all reappeared on the screen in a form that spans life and death.
This "Happy Family" is the process through which the four ghosts realize their dreams through the protagonist, and at the same time allow him to bravely pursue love and discover the beauty of life.
Are all ghost movies roughly similar? Ghosts represent established facts, and their appearance is nothing more than fulfilling the long-cherished wishes of the living or the dead. However, some endings are tragic, and some endings are happy.
Human beings like to be vague and always need to use other things to express their truest thoughts.
In fact, there were many ghost movies in Hong Kong movies in the past, but unfortunately, when it comes to ghosts, everyone seems to think of horror and horror.
Of course, there are also happy ghosts, but most of these films are pure entertainment films.
"Happy Family" also has rich entertainment elements.
We have to mention four ghosts, namely the "crying aunt", the "smoking uncle", the "alcoholic and perverted old man" and the "greedy kid".
Four ghosts who seem to have nothing to do with each other and have nothing to do with Shang Wan end up entangled with the male protagonist.
Shang Wan, on the other hand, is a veteran loser who grew up in an orphanage with no friends and no income. He sought death several times, but was always rescued inexplicably. The last time he attempted suicide, he encountered these four ghosts.
They all just want Shang Wan to help realize one of their dreams.
In fact, the setting of the dream fulfillment part itself is very ordinary. Generally speaking, the audience will think about the meaning behind the dream fulfillment. As a ghost, if you have unfulfilled wishes, they are usually regrets from your lifetime, so this is a touching story.
But the director took a different approach. He never told the reason why the four ghosts came to realize their dreams. In order to cover up, two methods were adopted:
1. Ghosts cannot take the initiative to tell some reasons unless Shang Wan takes the initiative to ask. During the process of realizing the dream, Shang Wan never cared about the four ghosts' purpose of realizing the dream. He just wanted to finish the matter quickly and be done with it.
Including when my grandfather said he was looking for a camera when he was drinking, he took him to look around all the camera stores in the city without even thinking about it. Only in the end did he find out that the camera was not in the store.
Including the process when Shang Wan helped the smoking uncle find a car. He found a luxury car without knowing it in advance. It turned out that the uncle only wanted a taxi.
2. The heroine Xiu Xiu’s branch line is indispensable. The process of realizing all the above dreams is directly related to Yanxiu and the hospital where she works.
Including the old friend of the drinking grandfather and the patient of the old friend, he is actually Xiuxiu's father.
Including the delicious little devil's troubles gave Shang Wan and Xiu Xiu a chance to get along.
Including the assist from the smoking uncle, Xiu Xiu fell in love with Shang Wan.
Of course, the real core of this film is actually none of these. It is not the so-called realization of dreams, nor love, but family!
Shang Wan, who initially lost the meaning of life, grew up in an orphanage due to lack of parental care. Every Children's Day, a group of people would come over to greet him, but no one remembered his name after that. No friends come to visit my home.
Shang Wan is lonely. The room he rents is actually very large, but it used to be messy and devoid of any warmth.
And when the four ghosts lived in his home, they went home once and took off their shoes at the door. It looked like a family coming home for a reunion.
Everyone eats together and watches TV together. When he returned home, he saw four ghosts sitting in the house, and he actually felt a longing for home in his heart.
He was thinking, how nice it would be if they were all human beings, even if they looked annoying, but for him who had been alone for so many years, this was unintentionally precious!
Family is like this. It is the motivation for a person to live and the spiritual factor that supports a family.
However, when we actually face our loved ones, we often fail to discover the goodness of our family members.
Just like Shang Wan was haunted by four ghosts in the hospital, and when he went home exhausted with four ghosts on his back, that was a common scene in many families.
When we don’t have family, we long for the company of our loved ones. When I have family, I am always upset and can't stand everyone's interruption and torture.
Therefore, every family has more or less conflicts and misunderstandings.
For example, Xiuxiu's feelings for her father are caused by the lack of emotion in the father-daughter relationship since childhood. Although her father tried his best to make amends, Xiuxiu could never really let go of her grudge. Even I don't want my father to die.
The longest part of the film actually explains the meaning of family.
For example, a middle-aged man thinks that his wife is having an affair and wants to abandon him, so he abandons himself. In fact, the wife is bearing the pressure herself, she just doesn’t want him to bear it. As mentioned before, misunderstandings among the living can be solved, but once the yin and yang are separated, the misunderstandings and regrets will last forever.
The death of Xiu Xiu's father was a big blow to her, and Shang Wan also fulfilled the four ghosts' requirements, but because of the change in their relationship with Xiu Xiu, both of them fell into a trough.
However, in the end, Xiuxiu discovered the gift her father left for her and understood that her father would always love her. When Shang Wan committed suicide in the car, he thought of Xiu Xiu, and finally rekindled his passion for life.
In fact, to a certain extent, this still explains the importance of family.
For the male protagonist, the four ghosts have left and his life has returned to what it was before. But at this moment, he actually longs for a family more.
But he is an orphan, what should he do? How to get rid of loneliness?
So Xiuxiu appeared!
Her appearance is actually the key to the hero's escape from loneliness.
And for Xiuxiu, although she kept saying that she would not forgive her father, she still hoped that her father would survive, but he still left.
Two people who had lost their family members came together at that moment to rebuild a family and turn each other into their own family!
At this time, we seem to have forgotten the meaning of the four ghosts' dream, and have attributed everything to the emotional preparation for Xiu Xiu's discovery of the meaning of family. Because of Xiu Xiu's words, the emotion of the whole film has been sublimated again.
Xiuxiu was eating the kimbap made by Shang Wan and asked: Doesn't spinach usually come in kimbap? Why would you put watercress?
Shang Wan blurted out: That's my mother. My mother said that water celery is good for the blood, so she always replaced spinach with water celery.
After saying this, Shang Wan finally woke up.
It turns out that these four ghosts are none other than his grandfather, father, mother and brother.
During a trip when I was a child, my father was driving a taxi. My grandfather borrowed a neighbor's camera to take pictures, but there was a serious car accident on the road. Everyone except Shang Wan died on the spot.
The lost camera was secretly put away by the police who were handling the case at the time. This is why Grandpa Drinker went to find the boss of the police station to get the camera back.
The smoking uncle finally found a taxi, took Shang Wan for a ride on the beach, and taught Shang Wan how to swim and drive.
And the delicious kid, who is Shang Wan's elder brother, always wants to protect his younger brother. He originally saved money to treat his younger brother to a movie, but was robbed by gangsters.
As for the crybaby aunt, she actually just wants to cook a meal for her children and eat it as a family. When Shang Wan was young, she saw her mother holding her son's hand in the market to buy vegetables together. She thought that when Shang Wan grew up, she could hold his hand and buy vegetables together.
In fact, the four ghosts have been helping Shang Wan. The so-called dream come true is actually mainly to let Shang Wan regain hope in life and help him and nurse Xiu Xiu get together.
The reason for such misunderstanding was actually the foreshadowing laid before. Gui would not take the initiative to tell the answer, but Shang Wan never asked.
We have always been like this. We may feel tired because of our family members, but they are also the ones cheering us on!
Perhaps this setting itself not only makes the plot more logical, this setting actually has its own special meaning.
Because many times we don’t take the initiative to say it, but need someone to ask before we answer.
The last scene just lightly mentions all the previous foreshadowing, and then the unspoken emotions for the family come up. Through Shang Wan's constant running back, Shang Wan's memory of his family is aroused, allowing Shang Wan to find himself again.
I think this is what distinguishes this film from other films about ghosts fulfilling their wishes. It is not sensational, but it touches the hearts of the audience.
This is what family members are like. Whether they live or die, they always stay with the people they love and never leave them.
This is probably the meaning of human life, simple and beautiful.
Finally, I have been a little confused, is this a comedy?
In my opinion, of course yes! Maybe this is the real comedy. When we watch the movie, we can't help but laugh. How much tragedy is behind it that we don't know about?
Otherwise, there wouldn’t be so many comedians who ended up suffering from depression and committing suicide.
Therefore, comedy can only be distinguished by understanding the silence at the time and laughing at the time and understanding the silence later. I am never completely happy, and if I am, it must be fake.
Li Yi's comedy is that he laughed from ear to ear at the time, and then cried like a dog.
And this "Happy Family" made people burst into tears at the time! "
