Film Name: 从21世纪安全撤离 / Evacuate from the 21st Century
After watching 《Evacuate from the 21st Century》 yesterday, I was less amused and more relieved – after putting aside my initial amazement, I saw the film a little more clearly, and at the same time I liked it even more, so I’m going to write another long article about it.
This time I won’t talk about anything else but the most valuable part of the film, the “youthful spirit”.
Lee Yang is still in the same frame of mind as he was a decade or two ago, and little has changed. Many have said that Evacuate from the 21st Century is still full of the flavour of Lee’s Adventures, and some of the film’s much-criticised perspectives, as well as the anachronisms of the film’s present-day setting, are the best evidence of this.
These flaws and strengths combine to give the film a slightly quaint, even “old-fashioned” quality: gritty, raw, passionate, flamboyant, and a constant spark in an increasingly decadent and depressing atmosphere.
Rewatching Evacuate from the 21st Century, I found that the settings of the three teenagers in the film are typical enough to encompass all of our adolescence.
Wang Chengyong, the eldest brother of the trio, has taken the lead role in his own eyes and in the eyes of others, is the most courageous in his age group, fights the strongest, and even his grades aren’t bad, and the most crucial thing is that he is also a pair of lovers with Yang Yi, the flower of the class, who is desired by countless people, and he made a promise to “be together forever” at the age of eighteen.
Makoto Yong’s 18 years old is undoubtedly ambitious and high-flying, and he has no doubt that he will win everything in the future, which makes him even more eager and curious about the world 20 years from now: have I become even more awesome? I’m still with Yang Yi and will be forever, right?
But adult life brings Seiyong nothing but disappointment and torment. He loses to reality, and in order to renew his father’s life, he completely abandons himself, breaks up with Yang Yi, cuts ties with others, and becomes a scavenger who shovels up things for the Third Master ……
So when the 18-year-old Cheng Yong learns what he was like when he was 38, he can’t help but be frustrated with the future, and even hesitant about everything he did when he was 18.
Wang Chengyong is the one who is constantly disappointed with the world and worn down by reality.
Bubbles, the follower in the trio, others and he feel that he is the supporting actor among the supporting actors, perennially hanging on, like many other boys, he also has a crush on Yang Yi, but he knows that he is not worthy of it, and can only hide that fluttering in his heart, like the rest of the negative emotions of low self-esteem.
Bubbles is the one most easily overlooked, even by himself, but it’s Bubbles who I can empathise with the most after I’ve second-looked at the film – because I was more like him as a teenager, and because he’s the one who mirrors the youth of more mediocre people.
“I hate being 18!” Even if he hadn’t seen what he’d be like in 20 years, Bubbles might have thought so; no 18-year-old boy wants to take Seong-yong’s script, but Bubbles can only watch others wreak havoc with their youth while he always has to put on a happy face.
So did Bubbles, who was in even better shape at 38, have a good time? Not really. Being Yang Yi’s spare wheel is a matter of mutual consent, so there’s not much to judge, but Yang Yi himself said, “At 38, you’re not happy either.”
Bubble is the one who has never been treated well by the world and has always been accompanied by depression.
In fact, just the two of them, Wang Chengyong and Bubbles, are enough to tell the story of everyone’s past and present, only that such a story is too grey, and that’s why there’s that dazzling freak.
Wang Fry, the second in the trio, is grumpy and straight, his brain stopped growing in the third grade, and he is the most heartless and unobtrusive, he will think about “what kind of woman is worthy of Chengyong”, he will also quarrel with Yang Yi for the sake of his love beans, and teach Bubble to do things for the sake of his big brother, it seems that there is no ego in his world, but when you look at it closely, there is ego everywhere. He seems to have no ego in his world, but when you look closely, there is ego everywhere.
In the real world, there are fewer than a handful of people like Wang Fry, for he is truly foolish, abject, and simple, and in Evacuate from the 21st Century, he is the favoured person who represents the film’s ethos.
After going to 38, both Cheng Yong and Bubbles are rapidly getting to know and accept everything around them, only Wang Fry always maintains his curiosity and lack of heart, and what I remember the most is that when he learns that the broken trailer is Liu Lianzhi’s home, the first thing that comes out of his mouth is “My plants! So awesome?!”
Similarly, Seung-young and Bubbles are both smart people, and when they realise, after repeatedly soul-searching between 18 and 38, that “the future is doomed” – the busy lady is doomed to have an accident on her bike, the lottery winner is doomed to win the lottery, and their 38th year is doomed to remain unchanged – both Seung-young and Bubbles are doomed to remain unchanged. –Seong-yong and Bubbles are both lost, and only Wang Fry is dumb enough to keep asking, “What does that mean?”
It is a bit late for Wang to understand this truth, but whether he understands it or not, it will not change his choice, he will sacrifice himself to save the world!
Wang Fry is the rarest and most precious of us, the one who dares to fight against the world and change it, the one who is always young and young and young at heart.
It’s not hard to find out that the undertones of the lives of the main group of protagonists in the film are in fact all tragedies (including Liu Lianzhi, who is always used and let down), and that the future isn’t bright at all, and everyone prefers to stay in the summer holiday of 1999 all the time.
An interesting question arises here: when an 18-year-old soul travels to a 38-year-old and two bodies share a soul, where does the 38-year-old soul go?
In terms of the film’s fatalistic setup, they’re trapped in a cyclical reincarnation from 1999 to 2019, with the 38-year-old middle-aged man being replaced by the 18-year-old destined to come and save the day and move on to the next reincarnation; but personally, I prefer Yang Ye’s simplistic way of putting it, and what’s so strange about the souls of 38-year-olds automatically dissipating when they’re living like walking corpses?
Of course, no matter what, the teenagers will have no choice but to charge at the strongest enemy again and again to make the world a better place.
To say a few words, in these years, the “main theme” of society has long changed, become not energetic, lack of hope, middle-aged people needless to say, even the young people are always old and sophisticated, calm and conservative …… We are proud to lie flat, to laugh at ourselves for fun, no one will! No one will think that the grown-up world is as beautiful as the one we envisioned when we were children, let alone beyond.
Don’t talk about “saving the world”, it is the mainstream that shouts “destroy the world” all day long.
The truth is, growing up in a world that has been constantly disciplining us, teaching us to be constantly self-disciplined and even self-loathing, that pleasure is something to be wary of, that disappointment and pain are the norm in life.
That’s why I, like so many others, love Evacuate from the 21st Century so much – we all understand that “goldfish ponds, summer, rabbits, fireworks…” And so on all those Liu Lianzhi said things will all be lost eventually, and even if they still exist, they won’t be the same as what they liked when they were young, and Wang Fry will miss out on Liu Lianzhi time and time again…but Wang Fry, Seiyong and Bubbles they will still try to make a bad world better time and time again.
After half a lifetime of travelling, they still return as teenagers.
In the words of the end of the film, it is like a wave that crashes against the rocks and pushes into the steep future over and over again, and like a starburst in the wilderness that blows up in the night sky and lights up the night.
I think of a sentence, although in the past few years by everyone quoted so much that some desensitised, but in this article at the end, used to highlight the “forever 18 years old teenage spirit” is the most appropriate.
There is only one true heroism in the world, and that is to love life after realising the truth.
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