Film Name: 雄狮少年 / I Am What I Am
To be honest, I didn’t have a strong first impression of I Am What I Am, and I didn’t have high expectations for the movie, given the relatively niche subject matter of traditional lion dances, the lack of good characters, and the fact that it had been withdrawn and re-scheduled – which, from past experience, is usually not a good thing.
However, I love the feeling of being “punched in the face”, and when I finished watching the movie, I just wanted to shout: it’s great! It’s so good!
I Am What I Am” has excellent image texture, scene rendering, and the most valuable thing is that it tells a grounded story, which is deeply rooted in our local community, from you and me, about life, growth and youth, and the ‘temperature’ it conveys is not limited by the subject matter, but is universally applicable. The “temperature” it conveys is not limited by the subject matter, but rather by the high spirits and romance that can be found in all places.
Therefore, we are not afraid of a clichéd story, but afraid of a bad one.
[Friendly reminder: there will be spoilers below].
Since I Am What I Am is an animated movie, as usual, I have to mention a few things about the visual presentation of the movie.
First of all, the character modeling. Unlike the senselessness (or a small dislike) when just watching the material, when you really watch the movie, you will find that the characters are extraordinarily real and vivid. When I saw the images of the teenage trio, Juan, Cat, and Dog, I had already believed in the story for three minutes.
Not to mention the “fat guy around everyone” Dog, the main character Juan’s appearance is very suitable for his persona, with long unkempt hair that looks unmanly, unkempt clothes, and a skinny body that looks like a left-behind child who doesn’t have parental supervision…. -I’m not sure if you’re a good person or a good person.
And I am most satisfied with the cat, his black and thin, pudgy face, wearing rags, seemingly slippery but simple appearance, as long as you have lived in the southern rural or urban and rural areas, the mind can definitely pop up one to several similar people.
Originally I think “small eyes” is not a big problem, but found that a lot of people are taking this matter, so I would like to say a few words: the reality is that there are indeed Westerners with small eyes, hanging eyes, and other stereotypes of the character to vilify us, this is the fight, but we can not be guilty of dogmatism, out of one set to drill into another set But we can’t be dogmatic and get out of one set and into another. The right way is to seek truth from facts, otherwise it’s just a case of “it’s good to get rid of the small eyes on the face, but hard to get rid of the small eyes in the heart”.
For example, when Salty Strong got the flyer of the lion dance competition, the golden light from the flyer reflected his aspiration, and then he was smashed back to reality by the coins thrown on his head, and the final competition, Salty Strong used “Nobody Sleeps in the Woods Tonight” to match his opponent with his feet (smelly) breath to smoke down the opponent and so on, all of them are dramatic exaggerations on the basis of common sense, and as for the moderate exaggeration for flickering and prancing during the lion dance Not to mention the modest exaggeration of the lion dance in the action scene for the flash-forward.
I have always believed that the greatest advantage of animation over live action is its “humanly inaccessible” form of expression, and the tone of “I Am What I Am”, which is “predominantly realistic, with an appropriate amount of exaggeration”, has vaguely developed into a style of its own.
At the same time, I have to say that the climax of the movie is too hot, too good, too good to watch! Take the three scenes in the second half of the movie that I like the most as an example:
One is the scene in which Ah Kuen, a wage earner, picks up his long-lost lion’s head and goes up to the rooftop of a building and stumbles back into the dance, from rusty and bumpy to getting better and better, and then ends abruptly when he greets the rising sun in the steel jungle of the city, i.e. the young man revitalizes himself, and also the young man waving goodbye to the past;
In one scene, Ah Kuen suddenly appeared to save the day in the nick of time, and those few frames reminded me of the Monkey King, who wore a golden armor with locks, a phoenix-winged purple gold crown, lotus root silk footsteps, and a golden hooped rod with the will of the beholder, but in fact Ah Kuen was in a dirty and smelly uniform, holding a worn-out lion’s head, old liberation shoes, and the flag of the “Strong Boys Salty Fish” team. But in reality, Ah Kuen is wearing a dirty uniform, a worn-out lion’s head, old liberation shoes, and the flag of the “Keung Chai Salted Fish” team… But for a moment, Ah Kuen is the mighty Monkey King who kills in all directions;
The last scene is naturally about Ah Kuen’s determination to step on Optimus Prime. Whether it’s the atmosphere and emotional buildup, or the action and rhythm design, or the ending of “man in the water, lion’s head on the top”, it’s all considered to be a masterpiece of the genre.
Even if we don’t talk about anything else, “I Am What I Am” is a “good-looking” animated movie on a visual level.
PS: the film’s soundtrack and songs is also a great, there are nine companies of real people, such as the participation of the Five Stripes, the style covers the traditional, pop, rock, ballads and so on, music I do not have much research, but like this trigrams of the friends should be given a higher evaluation.
The best thing about the movie for me is the “realism”, the realism of stepping on the ground and being buried in the earth.
Think about it: Ah Kuen, Ah Cat, Ah Dog – not many people talk about the custom of “cheap names are good for living” anymore, do they? –What is behind the hilarious story of the three teenagers who traveled many times to learn from a master?
On the surface, the story is about how sincerity is the key to success, but in reality, it reflects the dull life of a generation of “left-behind children” to “small-town youths” who have nothing to do and are idle.
Through the information on the leaflet of the Lion Dance Conference, we can learn that the film takes place in 2005, when China joined the WTO and further participated in economic globalization, and a new round of large-scale urbanization and modernization was launched in the country, with a large number of young and strong rural laborers entering the cities to become rural migrant workers, at that time, the front foot of the times had already stepped forward, and the back foot was still rooted in the hometown, which was difficult to leave. That’s why the protagonist, Ah Juan, is able to participate in the lively lion dance competitions in her hometown while looking forward to the early return of her parents who are working in Guangzhou.
If it were 2020 or 2021, I’m afraid we wouldn’t even be able to get the people in the movie together.
I don’t know how many people are still familiar with life in the countryside and townships of that not-so-distant-but-distant-again era, where villages and townships like the rice paddies in the movie probably didn’t even have a single black Internet café. …… A child like Ah Juan, whose parents are always away and who only has a grandfather to take care of her basic needs (it’s hard to keep up with schooling, and she no longer works the land), is lucky if she doesn’t go to bad school. Seriously, it’s good that they didn’t learn to be bad.
With this in mind, we have to revisit the value of “lion dance” for Ah Kuen and the others: to squeeze a little meaning out of a meaningless life, and this thing/this way/this craft can be lion dance, or anything else.
No one in the trio likes lion dance at all, not even Panda, who wants to meet a girl, or Dog, who wants to make a living, or even the main character, Ah Kuen, who is more interested in it because of the memories of watching the lion dance with her parents, and her parents’ wish to go home soon. …… But it doesn’t matter, it’s good to have a direction to go in.
Because I Am What I Am gave me a sense of reality that I could believe in, I was able to fully engage with it, even if its story was a bit clichéd.
To be honest, the plot of this movie is very simple, to put it bluntly, it is a less typical story of grassroots rebellion, both the traditional Hong Kong-style comedy of the city and fireworks, but also the passionate Japanese hot-blooded teenage comics.
For example, there are many times in the film, the sense of Stephen Chow’s movie, the middle-of-the-night neighborhood scolding seconds back to “Kung Fu Hustle”, the first friendly match of the salty team of the strong boy, how to see how it looks like the Shaolin team in the “Shaolin Soccer”, the Shaolin team was “friendly care”, Ajuan’s will to insist on the game, despite the injury to his feet! The determination of Ah Kuen to play despite her foot injury and the calmness with which she returned to her normal self after the match also brought back some of the feeling of watching “The First Slam Dunk”. ……
Simple as it is, the formula is simple, and as long as the story is told correctly, these are not a problem, and can even be an advantage.
In fact, the first half of “I Am What I Am” is not well paced, a few places are almost out of control, but fortunately there is a significant improvement in the middle and latter parts of the distinctive character images and full of feelings also pulled back a lot of the viewer’s feelings.
Personally, I really like the design of the couple, Salty Keung and Precious, which, in a few strokes, outlines the heavy, boring, yet romantic daily life of the common people.
Although it is not specifically stated, the movie clarifies the nature of “lion dance is not profitable” through many detailed clues, including “Precious falls in love with Keung” precisely because “Keung is the best lion dancer in town! “Combined with the several changes in Zhen’s attitude towards her husband’s return to his old profession, one can appreciate the sweet and sour of life.
Especially when Ah Qiang once wanted to give up again, Ah Zhen looked at her husband, whose vigor had been wasted by the firewood, rice, oil and salt, and asked rhetorically, “Don’t you regret it? …… I regret it!” The determination, encouragement and spontaneity, and her life together is salty fish strong, but she loves more or confident and happy strong brother.
When the final began, salty fish strong no matter how insisted on participating, I realized that he was also, and will always be a lion dance boy.
Last but not least, after the screening, I sent a message to my friends to express my attitude towards the movie, and someone left a comment expressing their dismay: “A wage earner is still a wage earner, but it’s so miserable that he’ll end up drifting from Guangdong to Shanghai”.
These comments reminded me that I Am What I Am is in fact a very grim tragedy – from left-behind children to small-town teenagers, Ajuan has finally returned to his parents, who haven’t been home for many years, only to be greeted by his father, who has fallen into a vegetative state, his tearful mother, and an unknown amount of debt. He then went out to work again to earn money. Whether he won or lost the lion dance competition, he was unable to change his fate.
The millions of people in families like Ah Kuen’s over the generations are both the credit and the price of today’s prosperity, which is not a pleasant story by any means if you really want to look into it.
So what is the point of the Lion Dance? The answer has already been given in the movie: the lion dance is the meaning itself.
For more ordinary people, a dream cannot illuminate reality, let alone dispel the darkness, but it can be a torch flame in life, warming the body and mind, and shining forever at a certain moment.
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