Film Name: 野孩子 / Stand By Me
There are some people and things that we haven’t seen for a long time, which may give people an illusion that they have disappeared from the world …… But in fact, they have always existed, but it is just more difficult to be found.
The newly released movie “Stand By Me” gave me a reminder: in the colorful present, there are still people who need to be paid attention to and help, and no matter whether there is outside help, they are always in the awkward, strong and stubborn to live.
Although the narrative of “Stand By Me” is a bit rough from a movie point of view, it is a good choice of subject matter, and the characterization and plot points are also okay, so it is a “good seed”.
Most importantly, I could see some hidden meanings in the movie, and its accurate portrayal of the environment and the sincere “teaching” it takes great pains to give the movie a valuable social value.
[Friendly reminder: there will be spoilers below].
The story of “Stand By Me” is very simple, so simple that the audience can understand what the movie is about in just one sentence:
XuanXuan, an orphan boy, accidentally befriends Ma Liang, an older boy who is trying to make a living on his own, and because he has something to eat after the other boy, he sticks to Ma Liang.
Wang Junkai’s recent movie success is obvious to all. I just saw him in “The Hedgehog” a while ago, where he portrayed the “silence, rebellion, and anger of a marginalized young man,” and this time around it’s an even bigger challenge for him to take on the first lead role.
Fortunately, Wang Junkai’s performance is good this time, with Ma Liang’s hidden kindness and constant hesitation, as well as that faint sadness that he can’t shake off, always on the line.
Of course, if this is the only thing, then another person to play, or a different movie can be established, but “Stand By Me” is the biggest difference is that it must be based on cowardice, hesitation and disappointment, show enough sincerity.
Wang Junkai speaks softly throughout the movie, on the one hand showing Ma Liang’s identity outside the mainstream society, and on the other hand shaping his character traits that he is not as tough as he seems. Thanks to this, the few emotional outbursts of Ma Liang in the movie are surprisingly effective, further illustrating the “nothingness” in his life. The film’s few emotional outbursts are unexpectedly effective, further illustrating the “nothingness” of his life.
In addition, the movie’s design for Ma Liang’s scenes is also very clever, with a few touching acts, such as the “big brother’s word” hook oath, which made me also can not help but be moved.
Good performances and good work are mutually reinforcing, and Wang Junkai has given life to his character with his own efforts, and I believe this movie will be an important footnote in his career as well.
Of course, what makes Stand By Me even better is that it depicts a “marginalized world” that seems so close to us, yet so far away.
The environment and logic of raising children today is different from the past, and I believe that many parents who usually bring up their children will share the same feeling with me: most of the places that are suitable for children to learn and play are expensive, and the rest of the places are either in bad conditions or they don’t feel comfortable for their children to go there.
So, my first reaction when I watched “Stand By Me” was “there are so many fun places around us that don’t cost a fortune”…… but this strange feeling was soon explained: dangerous houses, abandoned parks, wild lakes and other places are certainly interesting, but they are not places that normal people would go. These are places that normal people don’t go to, and adults are even less likely to let their kids go and play.
This means that the two children, Ma Liang and Xuan Xuan, are in fact feral children who have no one to take care of them – “no one to take care of them” sounds great, but it is an absolute nightmare for children who cannot take care of themselves and do not have the ability to earn a living.
Ma Liang is a street kid who can’t even pull out his ID card, and Xuan Xuan lives a life not much different from that of an orphan. The price for their seemingly “absolute freedom” is that they don’t enjoy the basic rights of an ordinary person.
I was very impressed by this when I watched the movie. These two brothers live in a restricted environment, they can only spend money in cash, they don’t dare to talk to the police if they suffer, they can’t go to the police (on the contrary, they always have to avoid them), and even when they go to the clinic to see a doctor, they have to come out before they get the medicine, and it would be bad if they are found to have “no identity”… …
The fact that minors are living like fugitives from justice is not normal in any way, and we have to wonder why this is the case. The most direct reason is that the relationship between these two people is not a good one, but XuanXuan wants to follow Ma Liang, and Ma Liang is also willing to take care of XuanXuan.
Theoretically, XuanXuan is not an orphan, he has a mother and father, but have disappeared without a trace, and the guardian grandfather and unable to take good care of, can only let him help pick up garbage, not to mention picking up the child to go to school, and even eat is a meal without a meal.
I once wondered if Xuanxuan’s grandfather was his own, but later had to admit that there are such relatives in the world, and the characteristics of the grandfather, more or less, also explains why the family problem of “not supporting the child” will appear from generation to generation.
In addition to Ma Liang and Xuan Xuan, there are many other wild children in the movie, and Uncle Wen’s small guesthouse is a children’s nest that houses all kinds of “orphans”.
Their persona is also quite typical, take the two big kids for example: Rat used to sell on the street when he was young, and his dream is to open the biggest Internet cafe, for him, the Internet cafe is the happiest place he has ever stayed in during his growing up process; Big Hair has a serious lung disease, and he always holds the idea of “one day at a time”, and he also has a serious hatred for the rich, perhaps because he was sickly when he was young, and he has a strong desire for the rich. He also has a serious hatred of the rich, perhaps because he was abandoned by adults because he was sick at a young age and his family lacked money.
Uncle Man, who uses children to commit crimes, is certainly not a good person, but he also uses the excuse that “I am helping these homeless children” to deceive others and himself.
This leads to a deeper questioning of “Stand By Me”: Why is there still a breeding ground for bad guys like Uncle Man in our society? There must be other people who have not fulfilled their responsibilities.
As I watched the movie, I could clearly see XuanXuan becoming more and more like a normal child – at first, he was so disheveled that whoever gave him a mouthful of food was a good person; after Ma Liang solved the problem of his basic needs, XuanXuan began to draw and learn to lose his temper; then he began to want to have playmates, and even wanted to go to school just like other children.
Slightly ironically, it is precisely because XuanXuan gradually has a childlike appearance that he is noticed by Officer Zhou Kao …… Before that, except for the ulterior motives of Uncle Wen, no one really cared about XuanXuan, even if he misbehaved and bullied other children, the parents just regarded him as an uneducated waif, and no one thought of him as a No one thought of him as a “wild child”.
Similarly, when Da Mao, Rat, and Ma Liang were just petty thieves, no one really paid much attention to them until they stole more and more rampantly, and only then did they come into the police’s sights ……
Also, Ma Liang began to take XuanXuan depend on each other, it seems that the sky and the earth can go anywhere, once the adults are serious to find the two, they suddenly become difficult to move up.
See, in fact, many things really want to do, is able to do, just has not been enough people determined to do it, just like the end of the movie police officer Zhou that a bit “preachy” but also true truth: if I can do more for him, maybe he will not end up in trouble.
Speaking of which, if we go back to the two main characters of “Stand By Me”, we will see how valuable Ma Liang’s behavior is – he didn’t give up on Xuanxuan because of his own experience of abandonment, but rather, with his raw, clumsy, stubborn and warm love, he lifted up a piece of sky for another poor child and realized his own redemption.
The poem “Moss” at the end of the movie is the best portrayal of the tiny but passionate vitality of “Stand By Me”:
The sun doesn’t go anywhere, youth comes of its own accord.
The moss flower is as small as a meter, but it also blossoms like a peony.
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