Film Name: 涉过愤怒的海 / Across the Furious Sea
Across the Furious Sea is one of the few movies I’ve been able to watch with high expectations this year and still come away satisfied, so I must seriously recommend it!
This movie, cloaked in the garb of “revenge for a woman’s murder”, is fierce and violent enough, using immersive, intuitive and unquestionable audio-visual language to peel away the tattered veneer of anger, sadness and lack of love, and ultimately pointing the finger at the lack of emotion that is prevalent in parent-child relationships.
On some level, Across the Furious Sea is really Einstein & Einstein in the vein of The Dead End.
It’s true that topics such as family of origin and generational conflict are nothing new nowadays, but they never get old, depending on the creator’s design and narrative – and this movie succeeds, of course.
(Friendly reminder: there will be plenty of spoilers below.)
In my opinion, Across the Furious Sea can be split into two parts. Ignoring the implied details for the moment, the first half of the movie is a murder mystery for a father who has lost his daughter.
Jin Meteorite (Lao Jin) all day fishing to earn money for his daughter Jin Lina (Nana) to study in Japan, but suddenly received the news of his daughter’s death, the biggest suspect is Nana’s boyfriend Li Miao Miao, out of the anger of the Lao Jin non-stop pursuit, all the way from Japan back to the country, and Li Miao Miao’s mother, Jing Lan, has become the biggest obstacle in front of him. ……
The first half of Across the Furious Sea has the structure of a revenge movie, but it’s hard to get excited about it because it really mobilizes the audience’s emotions of dissatisfaction, regurgitation, agitation, urgency and anger.
A beautiful young girl, body 17 knife strange death, as the boyfriend of Li Miao Miao see her father without half an explanation, but also hide the identity of the sneak escape, just like a no commitment to the scum style, even if Nana is not his murder, he absolutely can not get out of the relationship.
In Lao Jin’s tortuous and ill-fated pursuit process, more piercing our nerves is the identity and class differences bring obstacles: Lao Jin is just an ordinary skipper, even if he can barely afford to pay for his daughter to go to study abroad, Nana also have to work hard to thrift, and Li Miao Miao was just thrown to Japan by her parents to platinum, money is not a problem for him at all.
Moreover, Li Miao Miao can hide in a country house with a shotgun for defense when he returns to China, his father Li Lie, who lives in a mansion, can send his ponies to arrest him with a tracking device, his mother Jing Lan can get a visa that is not easy to get with just a phone call, and the couple instructs Sergeant Dai Zhen to selectively go out to the police as if they were calling the houseboys/private soldiers – this is definitely not a bottom of the barrel! This is definitely not a good family with a clean bottom line, “for the sake of the rich and unkind” is what they say, compared to the old Jin, who can only break into houses like a fly without a head, and drive a truck and donkey to follow around, from the very beginning is in the position of the underdog.
Take Lao Jin repeatedly in and out of the police station this matter, even without the layer of special relationship with Dai Zhen, Jing Lan is far more than Lao Jin know the relevant provisions of the law, know the rational use of arrest regulations to facilitate the guidance of the police is to catch or release.
In front of the all-around disadvantage, the only thing Lao Jin can rely on to turn the tide is his recklessness and blood courage with the fury of a man.
Across the Furious Sea” in the whole movie most shocked me a climax scene, when several major characters braved a tornado storm together past the bridge, this scene has a very important scenario elements ‘fish rain’ – The movie opens with Lao Jin calculating the cost of the trip and the possible harvest. He is a tough man who goes out to fish despite the fishing ban and dares to fight against the marine police, but the fish he catches from his hard work is far less than the weight of a storm hitting the land.
The same rain of fish, in the eyes of Lao Jin is a gift that has no time to care, in the eyes of Li Miao Miao is a toy that is within reach and does not care, the symbolism of which can be said to condense the biggest injustice of this grudge.
However, under the real heavenly power, everything is fair again, this fish rain dramatically smashed stop Jing Lan, Lao Jin and Li Miao Miao’s car, the most thick-skinned Lao Jin by his only advantage to catch Li Miao Miao, attack and defense change – this scene, with Huang Bo and Zhou Xun’s roar, screaming, maniacal laughter and the number of mourning to take together, the It’s a real treat for the eyes.
Up to here, the revenge scene of “Across the Furious Sea” has a staged conclusion, but things are far from over, Lao Jin got Li Miaomiao’s cell phone and found the video of his daughter being sexually abused in turn, in order to figure out the truth, he not only left the funeral of the last send-off of Nana, but also took the video around to show to the people, to pursue his ” justice”.
It wasn’t until Jing Lan said, “You showed a video of your daughter like that to someone, you didn’t love her at all.” It was only then that I snapped out of it, gathered up all the clues from earlier and realized that the film had entered the deep waters of the second half.
Lao Jin has done so many difficult things, seemingly all for Nana, but does he really love his daughter? He is buried in fishing day and night, but he doesn’t know his daughter, not to mention that he doesn’t know that Nana has a boyfriend, and he doesn’t even know what her hobbies and interests are – the most concrete manifestation of this feeling is the absurdity and sinister feeling of comic shows and cosplayers in Lao Jin’s eyes, in addition to the objective generational gap, it’s more because he sees this group of people as a group of people in strange costumes and “cosplayers”, who are not the only people in the world. The most vivid manifestation of this feeling is the absurdity and evilness of comic shows and cosplayers in Lao Jin’s eyes.
To put it bluntly, Lao Jin’s so-called love for his children is actually a continuation of his own perceptions, and his series of behaviors after Nana’s death are more like an angry man who has been beaten up, and is so intent on beating back and taking revenge that he doesn’t stop to cry out in pain, scream in agony, or grieve with a sense of tears.
As a father, Lao Jin has only anger, not love.
In contrast, Jing Lan, given to the child is unprincipled love, never punished for making a mistake, even if you do something hurtful will be infinitely tolerant and bottomless, let his jealousy, frivolous, violence continue to grow, so that he is accustomed to wantonly, in trouble just turn their heads and run away, anyway, there will always be an adult will wipe his ass for him.
Therefore, then shift the perspective to the two children, you will understand why Nana will be so lack of love, crazy for love, why Li Miao Miao will be jealous, insatiable, two young men and women with serious psychological problems accidentally became a match made in heaven, they come together, they will only act more and more extreme.
Because Nana grew up with an extreme lack of love, she does not know how it feels to be loved or to love others, so she has a kind of morbid pursuit of love, but unlike when she was a child and could only rely on her father, at this time she has a young and attractive body, and there is no lack of desire for the opposite sex to approach her, so she will maximize the emotional stimulation of whatever she can catch.
In fact, in addition to Li Miao Miao, Nana has also dated other men, such as the store manager who fell in love as soon as he showed his affection: during the period of cohabitation, Nana played a lot of “rogue” tricks, put her hands in the freezer and then go to the cold to wake up the store manager, so that he can make out with him, to go to school/work when the other side of the arms on the other body, get into the quilt, not to go, and so on! The first time you do this, it’s new and exciting, but after a little while, it quickly drains the passion out of the other person.
Take a close look at Nana sent strangers dynamic diary, it is not difficult to find her life for a while as warm spring, full of sunshine charming and love ecstasy, a moment and as gloomy as a rainy night, a piece of dark killing the cold air.
After going around in circles, Nana finds that the only one that best suits her taste is the possessive Li Miao Miao, with the line “I’m jealous of your shoes because they take you away from me.” It was the most charming words she had ever heard, and she fell in love with the sentiment of throwing shoes and agreed that “jealousy is the only measure of love”.
The two were already sexually abusive when they first got together, and with the amplified and enhanced paranoia and insanity, it eventually became inevitable that Nana would draw a knife and kill herself in order to prove her love to herself.
When I watched Across the Furious Sea, I once felt that the creators were really a bit wicked, letting Li Miao Miao overly obsessive Ulquiorra cos, but also letting Nana cos Inoue Ogi, even if the original “Shinigami” in the two characters in the Void Night Palace can be used to be stoned on the CP, but in the film their relationship with the two is a completely different thing! — then it slowly dawned on me that what they cosplayed was just self-imagined, with Miu Li thinking she was the powerful yet gentle Ulquiorra, and Nana wishfully thinking she was the simple yet fiery Inoue Orime (even though the original anime characters weren’t all that).
PS: “Shinigami” in this movie heavily “lie gun”, Li Miao Miao’s broken face cos props are McGuffin, I do not know whether director Cao or the screenwriters have read some strange homage to this ……
Across the Furious Sea is about the intergenerational problems of the family of origin. Don’t think that the story told in the movie is too extreme, like Lao Jin, letting his skinny child run with him, forcing his daughter, who is afraid of water, to learn to swim, not going to see a doctor for his child who has a fever, and not going out to visit the doctor for ten days and half a month.
Perhaps many children’s upbringing is not that outrageous, but I believe that we all, to a greater or lesser extent, will face the adults hard to stuff the dishes they do not like to eat, to learn the talents that they regretted not having the conditions to learn when they were young, and to fight the recognized broad consensus with all sorts of partial remedies and earthly remedies ……
The previous generation always thinks that they have come this way (for example, parents just need to work hard to earn money to feed their children), and the next generation can grow up this way, not realizing that their own experience is not always a panacea, and may even be an outdated poison, and that just because some difficult problems have not erupted in the past doesn’t mean that they don’t exist, and that there are too many vivid examples proving that it’s not the bloodline that really sustains parent-child relationships, but rather the kinship and love.
When I saw the last shot of Across the Furious Sea, I couldn’t help but wonder if everything would have been different in the future if the young Nana had been given a big hug by the sun-draped Lao Jin returning home when she crawled out of the closet.
Lao Cao’s grim and obscure movie froze me up, and now I’m craving the warmth of love and affection beyond measure.
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