The Chinese films of this year's Shanghai International Film Festival can be described as "frequent blockbusters". Following Dapeng's "Auspicious Ruyi" and Li Xiaofeng's "Calm Wind and Waves", the third Chinese-language film in the list of "Golden Jubilee Award Selected Films" of this year's Shanghai Film Festival, "See You Nara Again", finally unveiled the mystery on the last day of July and received a high reputation.
"See You Again Nara" is the third feature film by young director Peng Fei. Speaking of Pengfei, many friends may be impressed by his "Taste of Rice Flowers" three years ago, which is also an annual domestic masterpiece that many people cannot ignore.
This "See You Nara Again" is not only another cooperation between Pengfei and his old partner Hidezawa, but also the joining of Wu Yanshu and Kunisaka Hayabusa, the "old drama bones" of China and Japan, and the joining of Japanese powerful actor Masatoshi Nagase. The film's production team is even stronger: cinematographer Liao Benrong, editor Chen Bowen, sound effect Du Duzhi, music Suzuki Keiichi, and famous directors Jia Zhangke and Naomi Kawase as executive producers to escort the film. The film also received cash investment and technical service support from companies such as Happy Twist in the venture capital activities of Hainan Island International Film last year.
It can be said that "See You Again Nara" has gathered a group of the best Chinese and Japanese filmmakers, so this film has received countless attention and expectations since the beginning of the project.
The film held its world premiere in Hall 2 of shanghai cinema and welcomed its first audience. After the screening, director Pengfei and starring Yingze and Wu Yanshu attended the post-screening meeting. In the unceasing applause, the lead actor Wu Yanshu's grandmother was even more moved to tears, and her voice choked to thank the audience: "You are the first audience of our film, the Shanghai audience is our blessing, and Shanghai is our blessed land." ”
"See You Again Nara" continues the creative style and motif of the previous work "The Taste of Rice Blossoms", telling a warm and moving story of "searching". In the 1940s, after China's victory in the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the defeated Japanese army abandoned a large number of immigrants in northeast China when they retreated, many of them young children who were not yet adults, and these Japanese children who were adopted by the Chinese were called "Japanese orphans". The story of the film is based on this historical background.
Lihua, the adopted daughter of Grandma Chen (Wu Yanshu), is one of many Japanese orphans. In the 1970s and 1980s, Sino-Japanese diplomatic relations were normalized, and Lihua followed a large number of orphans in China to return to China, and since then she has maintained a correspondence relationship with Grandma Chen. Until 2005, Grandma Chen, who had not received a letter from her adopted daughter for a long time, finally could not stand the thoughts, so she went to a foreign country and embarked on a long journey to find her adopted daughter with the help of the second generation orphan Ozawa (Hidezawa) and the retired police officer Kazuo (Kunimura Hayabusa).
"See You Again Nara" retains director Pengfei's many ingenuities in creation, especially in the handling of style, avoiding the use of a bitter and vengeful perspective to tell such a theme wrapped in history and pain, but using a lot of slightly humorous bridges to resolve the heaviness in the background of the story.
Like "The Taste of Rice Blossoms", "See You Again Nara" continues to write the creative motif of "Searching", focusing the lens on the emotional relationship between people, especially mother and daughter.
In "The Taste of Rice Blossoms", the mother who returned from working in the city and the naughty daughter who stayed in the countryside have created an invisible barrier due to the distance, lack of companionship, and differences in living habits and culture; and the process of getting along again is the process of rediscovering family affection, and finally, this difference has reached a certain elimination and integration in the mother-daughter dance in the stalactite cave.
In this film, it is not only about the "search" in physical space, but also about the identification of national identity and the tracing and searching of emotional memories. The relationship between Grandma Chen and her adopted daughter is a relationship that spans blood and geography, which is based on time, but it is also gradually dissipated by the passage of time. Therefore, Grandma Chen's search is not only the process of regaining memories with her adopted daughter and establishing a bondage, but also a process of confrontation with time.
From the letters that Grandma Chen carried with her, as well as the few photos, the audience, together with several protagonists, also tried to find clues and piece together the outline of Lihua's life after returning to Japan.
However, Grandma Chen did not know Japanese, nor did she know what the Japanese name of her adopted daughter was, and she had very few clues in her hands. In such a situation, trying to find someone can be a needle in a haystack.
Here, Lihua's Japanese name is not just a code name, but also a symbol of status. The uncertain name refers to an uncertain, blurred identity, which is the real dilemma that these orphans have encountered in history. In the process of searching, Grandma Chen and her party also encountered other returned Overseas Chinese. Due to the long-term living in China, the language barrier, the separation from Japanese society, and the living habits and behavioral values have long been significantly different from the current social situation in Japan, these people often have difficulty integrating into society after returning to China and are not accepted by local residents or their relatives.
This is the contradiction of reality. On the one hand, these returned overseas Chinese with Japanese nationality also returned to the embrace of the motherland with the purpose of "tracing their roots"; but on the other hand, their dual identity also determined that it was difficult for them to be fully recognized by one of them.
Therefore, under such circumstances, Li Hua, a character who has never appeared, in addition to the mysterious feeling that shrouded it at the beginning, is also covered with a tragic temperament that is difficult to swing and helpless. From Lihua personally glimpse the entire group, this is not only a tragedy for her family, but also a tragedy for the whole history and times.
The same dilemma also happened to Ozawa, played by Hidezawa. As a Mixed-Race Child of China and Japan, and also a second-generation orphan, Ozawa also carries a lot of unspeakable pressure on his body.
Through this kind of side expression, director Pengfei naturally conveyed the theme of anti-war, which was thought-provoking. The pain and doom of war do not disappear with the cessation of time, and the price of this is the price of countless innocent people for generations of life. What can soothe the wound is not only time itself, but also love.
In the film, the description of the relationship between several protagonists is all based on love. Out of the longing for his daughter who married in Tokyo and was touched by the story of Grandma Chen, Kazuo was not only a witness, but also a participant in this search journey.
Grandma Chen from China, Kazuo from Japan, and Yingze, a second-generation orphan with both Chinese and Japanese ancestry, form a strange but stable relationship. This relationship jumps out of the original family and affection, is based on strangeness, but becomes extremely strong because of mutual understanding and love, giving birth to a new possibility, more vitality, and fully demonstrating a kind of "great love" that can break the cultural and linguistic barriers.
Behind this kind of love, what is shown is no longer based on the bondage of blood or affection, nor is it just a story from two countries and three families, but a most primitive emotion between people, beyond the limitations of language and time and space, and sublimated in the process of searching.
Also a story of a mother searching for her children, "See You Again Nara" forms a wonderful connection with another film called "Philomena" in text, both of which try to discover the hidden corners obscured by history and time, and present the brilliance of human nature.
Philomena
Compared with the latter, "See Nara Again" has another layer of more complex historical significance, in which the exploration of identity and the observation of reality, as well as the great love contained in human nature, are the main considerations of the director in the creative process.
For director Pengfei, this film not only arouses people's attention to the group of "Japanese post-war orphans", but also fulfills a warm dream for those Chinese and Japanese mothers and sons who are far away from the mountains and seas in real life and miss each other.
Time, language, culture, history, memory, these concepts do not hinder people from missing each other's footsteps, no matter how the world develops, how time passes, the most sincere emotional connection will always drive you to meet the person you want to see the most, just like life itself, constantly moving forward, walking non-stop.