As a Cantonese boy, I have a lot of memories of lion dances in my mind.
When I was a child, in the early morning of the New Year's Day, the family changed into new clothes neatly, burned incense and worshiped the gods and set off firecrackers, and then waited for the drums of the lion dance team to sound outside the door, and the spirited lion head came to the door, and the children took the red envelopes that had been prepared long ago, and after the lion dance team performed, the red envelopes were stuffed into the mouth of the lions.
After watching the lion dance, you will feel that this year really has to start with great ambition, which is the respect and ritual sense of Cantonese people for the New Year, and it is also a beautiful hope for the coming year. However, with the development of urban civilization, the demolition and relocation of the family, slowly growing up, graduating from work, I have not seen the lion dance for nearly 20 years.
Therefore, seeing the movie "Lion Boy" actually boldly adopted the folk culture of lion dance as the theme, and truly restored the flexibility and agility of the live-action lion dance performance, the hair of the lion's head was delicate, and the wonderful competition when picking green... I almost fell to my knees in tears, a touch made up of movies and childhood memories.
No IP, no myth, courage is commendable
"Lion Boy" is the only cinema animation film that does not have the IP of classical Chinese literature in recent years, does not rely on myths and legends to create ("Bear Haunting" is not in the scope of discussion), a new original story, or a realistic theme, this alone is enough to impress people, original story + realism, for the national comic, is a matter of great courage.
As we all know, there are two big mountains in the national comic circle - "Journey to the West" and "List of Fengshen Gods". Among them, Sun Wukong and Nezha are soul characters who are repeatedly used/consumed by domestic animators. From 1961's "The Haunting of the Heavenly Palace" to 2015's "The Return of the Great Sage", from 1979's "Nezha Noisy Sea" to 2019's "The Demon Boy Descending", it has been proved that Sun Wukong and Nezha are the top streams of the national comic.
In addition, there is also the rising star "The Legend of the White Snake", the so-called male Wukong Nezha, the female has Xiaobai Xiaoqing, it seems that as long as you bring these ancestors, the box office of the national comic will not be too bad. Because of this, out of path dependence psychology, Guoman does not seem to have escaped the strange circle of these IPs in these years, just as Sun Wukong cannot escape the Five Finger Mountain of rulai Buddha, away from myths and legends, and the animators seem to not know how to tell stories.
Of course, there are also one or two national comics that try to innovate sporadically, such as "The City of Figurines" released this year, which is taken from the Terracotta Warriors of Xi'an, although the script story is not good, but it is also creative. If you open your mind a little more, you can only be the low-grade animation of "Bear Haunting" and "Pleasant Goat and Gray Wolf".
It can be seen how Guoman lacks innovation and imagination in its original story.
In contrast, the more mature Japanese manga, when I was a child, I watched "Slam Dunk Master", "Naruto", "Crayon Shin-chan", "Cherry Maruko", and when I grew up, I watched "Gintama" and "In Shimo-Sakamoto, what is the noble work? "Animal Rhapsody", "Working Cell"... Whether in terms of theme or painting style, Japanese comics are more diverse and diverse, and how much I love to watch Japanese comics, how much I hope that National Comics will take another step forward.
And "Lion Boy" turned out at this time, using folk elements to tell a realistic story, whether it is the picture, technology or soundtrack, it has achieved perfection, making up for the gap in the realistic theme of national comics, and is a milestone existence of national comics, many national comic fans, singing "Just like this to be conquered by you".
The second dimension also has no fairy tales, but can create miracles
The story of "Lion Boy" is actually not new, even a bit old-fashioned, waste wood teenager growth record, salted fish turned over the counterattack road, which has been repeatedly chewed many times in countless film and television works, but the film has used countless moving details, emotions, feelings to fill the story line, making it not fall behind, amazing.
The main story line of the film is summed up very simply, in the Chaoshan countryside of Guangdong, the left-behind teenagers Ah Juan, A cat, and A dog were bullied in the village, in order to fight for a breath, embarked on the road of chasing the dream of the lion dance, found the lion dance brother salted fish many years ago to learn the art, the four masters and apprentices all the way to climb and roll, in the world's doubts to move forward, and finally reached the highlight of life.
The protagonists of the film are ordinary low-level small people, left-behind teenagers who have never seen the world in the countryside, and pray to God every day to hope that their parents will return home as soon as possible;
A middle-aged poor man with a warm blood but having to succumb to reality, in order to make a living, put down the lion's head and sell salted fish;
Even migrant workers in big cities, Chinese New Year's Eve night, sit on the roof of a tall building under construction, blowing cold winds, nibbling on steamed buns, and saying to their sons who miss on the phone: "We are very good, big fish and big meat, we will definitely go home next year." ”
Of course, teenagers have cold eyes and ridicule on the road to chasing their dreams, but prejudice does not crush the protagonists, and what really brings them down is poverty and every moment of bowing to life for money.
Just like Ah Juan, who has studied for a long time and has a good martial art that can play a game, but when his father is paralyzed in bed, he still has to be like the master many years ago, put down the lion's head, carry his bag, and go to the big city to work and earn money.
In Guangdong, it is not a per capita charter company, but more of these ordinary people who constantly kneel down in order to survive.
Guangzhou, a big city, there are a conservative estimate of 5 million migrant workers, born in poor small places, they abandon their families, leave their homes, stand up against the dense skyline of the big city to get up early and make money in the dark, like Ah Juan, one person works several jobs, while moving bricks while delivering takeaways, and may also be bullied by co-workers and forced to sleep in the "lower bunk".
One of the most ironic scenes in the movie is probably when Ah Juan is moving bricks, and there is a plane flying overhead, and he looks up at the sky, his eyes are full of confusion. The plane is beautiful, symbolizing the urban technological civilization and the upper class, but it has nothing to do with Ah Juan, and looking at it from a distance, this is the only interaction between the two classes.
Just like the construction site of moving bricks, the building built, even if it is attached to the sweat and even blood of countless "Ah Juans", it has nothing to do with them.
In Hao Jingfang's "Beijing Folding", the only connection between people in different spaces and different classes is garbage, and people in the lower class identify the life of the upper class by picking up garbage and dividing garbage, and at the end of life, there is only garbage left.
Therefore, whether it is science fiction or animated movies, the passage of the two classes is never clear, especially at the moment when resources are further tilted and concentrated, the lower classes of people must strive to achieve a class leap through hard work, and there is no end in sight.
Looking at reality and paying attention to left-behind teenagers and migrant workers is the humanistic care spirit of "Lion Boy", and it is also the brilliance that distinguishes it from other national comics. In addition to reality, the lion dance line in the film makes Ah Juan glimpse a glimmer of light in her suffocating life.
As long as she put on the lion's head, Ah Juan can temporarily break away from reality and breathe a sigh of relief. Above the high stakes, he was the well-deserved focal point, stepping on the drums, roaring, step by step, climbing Optimus Prime.
In the last game, the film is handled extremely smoothly, and the injured Ah Juan, with bloody footprints, in the boiling drums, transforms into a male lion, jumps up, and successfully climbs to the top.
This realist national comic uses a surrealist approach to let the protagonist create miracles. This is a miracle belonging to countless small-town youth, and the film uses the lion dance to pay attention to the nameless people who have been "sacrificed" in the construction of the city, giving them a clear salon photo of the blurred face.
Although after removing the lion's head, Ah Juan still has to return to reality. However, the lion dance is like life, up and down the mountain, up and down, not necessarily every time can successfully pick green, but as long as you do not admit defeat, as long as there is a drum in your heart, there will still be a road in the future.
In the process of watching the movie, I thought of the ordinary McDougal, "McDoubt and My Mother" has a line: "In the face of fate, my mother can lose, all lost; in the face of fate, my mother can win, and she has won back." This is also Ah Juan, a teenager with nothing, who won back her dignity through the lion dance, and won the respect even once.
Classic Hong Kong film elements can also be seen everywhere in the movie, Ah Juan wearing a red vest, exhorting herself to work hard against the sky, and the name of Salted Fish Qiang, all of which remind people of Zhou Xingchi.
On the one hand, these are the creators' tribute to Hong Kong films; on the other hand, they reflect the far-reaching influence of Hong Kong films on Guangdong, whether it is Huang Feihong or Zhou Xingchi, they are the cultural spiritual symbols of Cantonese people from small to large, which is also the intention of the film.
The emergence of "Lion Boy" has given Guoman more imagination since then.
As for the delicacy of the film on the screen and the technical details, I will not dwell on it, just a few places, the first half of the film, the outdoors in the summer of Guangdong, the teenagers are drying, we can see the real heat wave steaming on the screen; there are such as hand-beaten cow balls, ancestral ancestral halls, Fangcun subway station, hero kapok, Cantonese songs from time to time, etc., all of which make me cry out in the cinema.
Does this movie have flaws? Of course, there are also, for example, the first half hour of rhythm and scheduling that everyone can see is not good enough, but this small shortcoming can't stop it from being my favorite theatrical animation at present.
The film mentions that in the lion dance, Optimus Prime intends to warn the lion dancers to remain in awe, because there is a mountain and a mountain high, on martial arts, the world does not know the edge of the high; however, on love, in the current national comic, "The Lion Boy" has achieved "the world is always hello".