It is said that this film is adapted from a real case, which I will explain later in the article. Fortunately, the director is not limited to the tragic life, but along the bloody wounds of human nature, using a keen lens to directly probe the source of the wounds.
I am used to watching many nonsensical, thrill-seeking, ridiculous, big scenes and ruffian films, let’s take a look at this film directed by the young Japanese director Hirokazu Koreeda (Frankly, I prefer the English translation of the film “No One Knows” ""Nobody knows"), you will feel that this film is actually talking about the essence of our own life and about human nature. Despite the saying that when humans think, God laughs. But isn't the difference between human beings and other creatures precisely because human beings know how to think actively and are better than wisdom?
Time to talk about the movie. Simple and quirky, the film tells the chronological story of a single woman, Keiko, who raises four children in peculiar ways. from the film. It can be seen that Keiko is actually a prostitute, and her four children also have their own fathers. In order to avoid gossip and her own livelihood, she has to move. So, at the beginning of the film, we saw this scene at a loss: Keiko and her eldest son Ming, who was twelve years old, arrived at the newly rented house first with a few large boxes. Keiko told the landlord that her husband had gone abroad and only brought the son's life. Then, when the box was opened, the younger son Mao and the younger daughter Xue came out of the box, and the eldest daughter Jingzi would also share their new home after dark. Why has to be this way? Slowly, with Keiko's "three chapters" to the children, and constantly going out and returning home after many late-night drinks, we see that this is actually a "crippled" family. With Keiko missing for a long time, the eldest son Ming went out to look for it. We met the "fathers" of other children, including taxi drivers and game hall owners. Indirectly, we also see the trajectory of Keiko's life.
I am very surprised. In the film, Keiko always keeps the children locked in the room, and they are not allowed to go to school and contact with outsiders. Except Ming can go shopping when he is not at home, Jingzi can go to the balcony to dry clothes. But the children have a pure and kind heart. Ming likes to play games, but he does not learn to steal because of it. Even if he is with those students from better families who have bad behavior, he will not be affected by it. At the mercy. The young actor Liu Leyoumi, who played Ming, performed very successfully. It is no wonder that he won the Best Actor Award at the Cannes Film Festival in 2004, becoming the youngest actor in Cannes history. The actors who played several children in the film all performed well, including the actress who played Keiko. Can you see that she is making a movie for the first time?
It is said that most of Hirokazu-eda's films are slow-paced and the stories are not intense, but this kind of deposition is the director's characteristic. I was deeply impressed by the little girl named Xiaoxue. From the beginning to the end, the little girl was innocent and cute. She didn't understand the sufferings of the world. She only knew how to listen to the words of her mother and her brothers and sisters, and play alone in the house. I didn't propose to go out until my mother didn't come home for a long time. On the night of my birthday, my brother Ming led a happy shopping trip wearing cartoon shoes. Her biggest wish was to go to Haneda Airport to see the plane, and it was finally realized in the most familiar and tragic way.
At the end of the film, there are still four children walking under the sun, still two boys and two girls, the difference is that Xiaoxue has become Saki, the same lonely girl. The film does not explain Saki's background. It is said that in another film by Hirokazu Ededa, this role reappears, which shows that the director has long-term plans and thinking about his work.
The story is tragic, starting from Keiko leaving 200,000 yen and a note to the four children, who deal with life alone. Keiko's departure should be helpless. From her actions of taking care of the four children at home, I understood the hardships in Keiko's heart. Although she told Ming in the film, she has the right to pursue happiness. From my understanding, what she is looking for is only the possibility of survival, which is the instinct of human existence. She did her best for the children. In the face of a living environment where she reluctantly gave up her own flesh and blood for her own survival, can we accuse her too much of her cruelty? Cruel can only be the society in which she lives.
Regarding the fate of the children in the film, from watching the film, I had a premonition that Xue's fate was ill-fated. That's it, from the time the children picked up the seeds of the plant, from the time Shigeru wrote Koyuki's name in the flowerpot, from the time the flowerpot with Koyuki on it fell down the stairs. When the director was arranging the fate of the children, why did he arrange for the youngest child to go to Huangquan alone? I guess there may be some consideration. Generally speaking, the youngest child often symbolizes hope for the future, and he arranges the youngest child to die, isn't it just warning people that if we don't wake up, we will lose hope?
I think this is a movie worth watching. Of course, it would be even better if you could find a DVD with good picture quality and watch it again.
Supplementary explanation The prototype of the story of "Who Knows the Heart of a Child": In January 1988, a mother in the Nishi Sugamo area of Tokyo left her 14-year-old eldest son and three seven-year-old, three-year-old and two-year-old daughters at home in order to live with her boyfriend. The four children have no household registration and do not go to school. Afterwards, the two-year-old daughter was beaten to death for stealing instant noodles from her eldest son's friend. The eldest son also kicked and injured his younger sister. The body was then buried in a park in Chichibu City, Saitama Prefecture. In July of the same year, neighbors found that the house had only been living with children for a long time and called the police to report the incident. The two daughters were severely malnourished, and the body of the second son who died of illness was found. The mother, who was charged with abandoning and harming her children, was jailed for three years but suspended for four years before taking her two daughters home from the protection centre. The eldest son was charged with injuring the younger sister to death and abandoning the corpse, and was sentenced to a correctional institution and officially enrolled in school for education.
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