Film Name: 送你一朵小红花 / A Little Red Flower
The first theater screening of 2021 was dedicated to A Little Red Flower, and judging from the box office and word-of-mouth so far, although it’s not going to be a phenomenal hit, it’s still enough to be called a “success”.
The title line, “The road ahead is still long,” is both for the cancer patients and their families and friends inside and outside the movie, hoping that they can have hope for the best, and also for director Han Yan, who has made some changes in his directing this time around, but hasn’t made much progress, so let’s hope he can do better in the future. I hope he can go further in the future.
It’s not that A Little Red Flower isn’t good, in fact it’s one of the best of its kind in China …… I’m just looking forward to seeing a real breakthrough in this genre, like Wei Yihang’s epiphany and growth at the end of the movie.
[Friendly reminder: there will be spoilers below].
First of all, I hope you can distinguish between how much of what moves you comes from the movie itself and how much comes from your own feelings.
The basic sincerity of A Little Red Flower lies in the fact that it really tells the story of a family and a patient fighting cancer (rather than using cancer as a gimmick), and that it can touch the emotions of people who have gone through similar experiences and who have not had an easy life.
For example, the father and daughter who fight cancer only appear three times in the movie, once when the father Lao Lu feeds his daughter, once when Lao Lu takes his daughter to buy a wig, and the last time when a distraught Lao Lu walks out of the hospital alone, crying and eating the braised beef and rice that his “daughter” ordered for himself – this was the first time I really cried when I watched the movie. The first time I really cried during the movie was right here, even though the design of the sequence was not perfect, and there were elements of melodrama and irrationality, it just poked me.
This is the inherent advantage of realistic themes (especially in the relatively scarce environment of domestic realistic films), just as the audience is willing to pay the “premium” for Dying to Survive, as long as A Little Red Flower touches you, then it is a good movie.
With that in mind, let’s talk about the movie’s strengths and weaknesses in all fairness.
The biggest strength of A Little Red Flower, I think, is the realism of the love line, and the success of creating several characters with flesh and blood and thickness, such as Wei Jiang and Tao Hui, Wei Yihang’s parents.
The movie is very good at completing the accumulation of emotions in the details, and then at the right time to focus on bursting out: Tao Hui frugal, hate every dime into two halves to spend, in the son suspected cancer recurrence, but while scolding his mother begging along the street while the unprecedented 100 yuan, Wei Jiang gentle and soft, to his wife to listen to his son did not red face, in the Wei Yihang said the word “death”, but could not help but slap and then sincerely apologize. “The word, but could not help but slap and then sincerely to apologize ……
Especially the two recorded “life after the loss of son” video, warm and daily. The characters are well established and the plot is colorful enough, which is why the film has been widely recognized.
However, a closer look reveals that the “authenticity” of “A Little Red Flower” is still filtered.
The protagonist’s family is very kind and friendly, in order to children, grandma is willing to sell the house, uncles and aunts competing to pay, Wei Jiang couple even said no, Wei Yihang also bowed to know gratitude …… and then zoomed into the whole film, unity and love between the sick and support each other, there is no staring at the sick people’s jugglers, there is no for the treatment of the disease to cause a chicken and dog jumping The most is the appearance of a very low level of chicken soup master.
It can be said that the biggest “villain” of the movie is only the attack of cancer and the struggle of the family to fight cancer – although it is already difficult for the person concerned, but for the reality of the group of people who are fighting cancer, the story of this movie still seems to be too “beautiful”. “It’s too good to be true.
This creates a problem: once the basis of the subject matter is removed, as well as the real life and characters mentioned earlier, the rest of the film looks like water without a source, wood without a root, and it is harder to empathize with it.
Yes, I’m talking about the romance between Wei Yihang and Ma Xiaoyuan, and it’s the main story of the movie.
In fact, to break it down, there are a lot of redeeming features here: for example, the performances of the two young actors, Yi Yihang showed a rickety, timid mourning, and Liu Hao Cun also has the kind of flinty strength that is always in time (very soulful, the future is promising); for example, the two men’s fantasies of traveling around the world in the city are full of self-congratulatory cheerfulness and positive and optimistic warmth; and also for example, the two men’s design of a fake and a real one falling ill successively, give Enough of the drama of the staccato …… can be a little bit of the wrong taste, that is, Wei Yihang and Ma Xiaoyuan’s proximity is slightly far-fetched, and YiYi QianXi and Liu HaoCun between the not very incoming call.
I understand that the love of men and women is sometimes not much sense, but in such a movie with the theme of the fight against cancer, want to use romance to highlight the life and death, thinking about life, the relationship of the “instrumental” has always been a little heavy.
Of course, the ending of the film is not bad, Wei Yihang put his regrets and resentment towards Ma Xiaoyuan, as well as his unfulfilled expectations in a fantasy parallel world, and lived on with relief and hope, sorrowful but not hurtful, warming the heart.
Afterwards, I thought about it and realized why “A Little Red Flower” looks good everywhere, but it always feels almost interesting: in this film, Han Yan has been restraining the “characteristics” he used to flaunt – exaggerated representations of spiritual activities and emotional consciousness. In this film, Han Yan has been restraining his past flamboyant “characteristics” – the exaggerated figurative expression of spiritual activities and emotional consciousness – and replacing them with a form that is closer to reality.
Not to mention First Time, which was made at the time of his debut, Han Yan has made two feature films in the past few years, namely 2015’s Go away Mr. Tumor and 2018’s Animal World, in which one of the distinctive features is the novelty/absurdity, funny/written “cerebral” depiction: Bearden’s “cerebral” depiction of his life, and his “cerebral” depiction of his life. One of its distinctive features is the novel/absurd, funny/witty “brain” depictions: Bearden’s nymphomaniacal or pompous brain theater, and the clown-killing extravaganza started by the “sick in the head” Kaiji Zheng.
(Han Yan is quite good at playing his own game, making the Joker appear in a cosplay-themed memorial service for patients, and making “Mr. Tumor” a must-see for his mom’s cancer fight~)
Unfortunately, this advantage that was praised in Go away Mr. Tumor became a controversial and even criticized issue in Animal World, and Han Yan expressed his intention to reflect and change his attitude at that time……. Perhaps for this reason, the brainstorming in A Little Red Flower is not a good idea. Perhaps for this reason, the cerebral part of “A Little Red Flower” has been transformed from an exaggerated rendition of the past fantasy into a figurative one to an alienated portrayal of the present fantasy into an abstract one (“traveling around the world” and the lakeside vision are typical examples).
Throughout the film, Han Yan in the details of polishing and characterization has made great progress, but in the narrative approach and other aspects of the change but failed to reap the desired results, on the fluency and rhythm, “Little Red Flower” may not be as good as “Tumor”, which has a similar theme, but can be progressive. “…… So, I always feel that this movie can be made better.
I’m saying all this mainly because I have high hopes for Han Yan, a post-80s director whose work has been hovering around the 7.0+ Douban mark, not up or down, and who is just short of a substantial breakthrough performance.
A Little Red Flower” tells us that we may not be able to overcome illness, but we can cherish the present and embrace every ray of goodness in our lives – so I’m willing to believe that Han Yan has the ideas and ability to make better works in the future.
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