"Father Like Son" is just a transitional film, relatively conservative and stable. For Shiede Hirokazu and many of his fans, this film only brought into play his less than seven points of talent. Everyone felt that he could produce a work that could be called a classic, surpassing "Nobody Knows" and "Steps". "Non-stop", even picking Palme d’Or.
It should be expected that fans who look forward to the new work in anticipation of "Non-stop" will be a little dissatisfied with "Father Like Son", because in the meantime, everyone has been slightly disappointed twice, science fiction The cult-style "Air Doll", on the contrary, is quiet and low-key, it is the loneliness and loss of adults. After that, the relaxed and interesting "propositional composition" "Miracle" returns to the old road of children's dramas and family dramas, but Regarding adults as the bottom plate and children as the center, the audience is mobilized to travel to Kagoshima on the JR Kyushu Shinkansen.
The reason why "As Father Like Son" has only exerted 70% of its directorial skills lies in the use of "Non-stop" as the specimen. First, the story of "As Father Like Son" is popular and old-fashioned and tends to be commercialized. New ideas; second, in terms of expression, there is no breakthrough, no surpassing, but normal performance according to the usual skills, not going to the unknown area, reconciling the new color, and trying another expression that is both familiar and unfamiliar. As for when the director will be able to use all his skills, everyone will be satisfied after "Non-Stop", and they must continue to look forward to it.
That’s right, it’s Hirokazu Ee’s films that always make people watch calmly and as if drinking tea. They are moved by the small details of the gentle wind and drizzle, and the movement is in harmony. This is very similar to Ozu. The drama of "Like a Father Like a Son" is more dramatic than "Miracle" and "Non-stop Walking". "Be stronger, but this kind of peace and slenderness is still hidden in the bones, and it is completely moved in the end. The director is really a master at filming families and children. In his film, every adult is in the eyes of children that can melt everything, his acting skills are lost, and his motivation is absent.
Indifferent is the director's specialty, just like he is good at training child actors. It is said that children and animals are the two creatures most feared by the director. Once they are in the lens, it is difficult to control and reconcile them. In the past ten years, children have been indispensable moving props in Hirokazu's movies. The director also has an insight that others do not have. Aura little actors, put them in the most needed position. However, as a single life entity, the child is still relatively closed and secure in contact with the adult world, without face-to-face communication and conflict.
"As Father Like Son", the frontal conflict between adults and children is somewhat cruel. They exchange their children by exchanging lodgings, and deceive them by means of commands and tasks, so that the children have to complete tasks, obtain grades, and get praise from adults. Mood to accomplish this cruel thing. When the two children realize that this is an exchange that cannot be returned, the adults are deceiving their innocent emotions. One is extroverted and actively challenging, choosing to escape and return to the original parents; the other is low-key , Submissive, passive adaptation, hatred when the original parents came to respond. What eliminates cruelty is love, which is also the core of moving the audience.
Parent-child relationship, blood relationship, baby drop-off, middle class, commoner family, two-generation father-son entanglement, these elements are mixed together and easy to understand. In China, they are often the subject matter rendered by "Military Friend" magazine. As a movie, it may become a little careless. Sensational dog blood drama.
It was Hirokazu Edema who pushed the plot with consistent restraint, not slow and fast, using many details to show the parent-child relationship that is difficult to part with, secretly taken photos, repairing toys, buying drinks, playing piano, father and son bathing, biting straws, etc. The character's mental outlook and attitude towards life.
In the core of family dramas, "Nobody Knows", "Non-stop Walking", "Miracle", and "Nobody Knows", including the TV series "Back to My Home", it is Hirokazu Ee that promotes the characters not with stories, but with characters. The story, the so-called drama conflict is very light, and the story is so simple that it can be summarized in one sentence, trivial but not popular. "Father Like Son" is the closest thing to a popular drama, where children drop their bags and shed blood to recognize relatives. These things that happen in daily life are very low and are full of deliberateness. Even if the ending is touching, there is a certain amount of sensational traces.
If you have to find a key word to summarize these family dramas by Hirokazu Ee, then it is "reconstruction." "Nobody Knows" means the mother has left, and the children rebuild their new homes and support each other; "Non-stop" means the eldest daughter and the second son establish a new family relationship after the eldest son and father pass away, "Miracle" is the two children The reunion and wishing of reconstruction are completed through the Kyushu Shinkansen; the reconstruction of "As Father Is Like Son", through the love established by habit and dependence, to offset the human relationship that cannot be replaced by blood relationship, the conflict of power is the most obvious.
The film revolves around the middle-class family starring Fukuyama Masaharu, but the highlight is the Lilly Frank family as supporting actors. The high-profile choice of popular film and television song star Masaharu Fukuyama made the movie full of commercial interest, and in one fell swoop made "Father Like Son" the best-selling movie in the director's career of Hirokazu Kee.
If you see the expression of "Detective Galileo" in the face of Masaharu Fukuyama's smiles, unchanging hairstyle and exquisite clothes, then please don't mind, this is also the selling point.
Lilly Frank and Yoko Maki's unobtrusive civilian performances are more relaxing and enjoyable than the "Ferocious" and "Goodbye Valley" that gave them awards in 2013. For the "idolist" Masaharu Fukuyama, it is a little difficult to relax, too handsome and too correct. But it can’t be said that Masaharu Fukuyama is not suitable for Hirokazu Edema’s film. Its elegance, handsomeness, focus, and loftyness are really white-collar elites. If this role is given to Abe Hiroshi, an uncle Kan who looks like a commoner with a sense of joy. However, it may not necessarily be able to perform this kind of self-centered "stubbornness" of successful people struggling from the bottom to enter the middle class.
Just ask for good-looking, caring, comfortable these is Zhi Yuhe, "Father Like Son" can be scored 80 points, for a director's work that has more room for growth, only 70 points can be scored. Movie fans look forward to more pure, restrained, broad imagination, and more dynamic expressive is Zhi Yuhe. In the warmth, gentleness, the breeze is coming, the drizzle is quiet and the rain is slowly soaking, in addition to these well-known signature routines, change to a new one. Confident and fresh shooting methods have reached the highest peak of personal creation, and it is Hirokazu Kee who is more sensitive and meticulous.
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