In the first 70 minutes of the film, the two timelines are carried out at the same time. The middle-aged Luo Hongwu returned to his hometown because of the death of his father, and fell into the memory of another death many years ago. In the wet cellar, a string of phone numbers behind an old photo starts a retrospective journey of memories.
At that time, young Luo Hongwu captured the murderer's mistress in order to find the murderer of his best friend Bai Mao. She was a mysterious woman whose name was a mystery. She said her name was Wan Qiwen, and he fell in love with her. Wan Qiwen always appears and disappears inexplicably. He believes that they have fallen in love briefly and passionately. She said that as long as she got rid of her lover, she would be with him, otherwise the two would have to escape into space. He believed and pulled the trigger, but the lover disappeared. In the narrations of Zhang Aijia, the prison woman, and the hotel owner, Wan Qiwen's image became more complicated and fragmented. What kind of woman is she? Like a snake in a glass jar, beautiful, mysterious and deadly.
From the 70th minute, he entered Luo Hongwu's dream. The time, space, and logic of the real world have all disappeared. The mudslides in reality and the dampness in memories also disappeared, replaced by a long, clear night. In dreams, there are no reflections and mirror images, and there is no vague sense of looking at a person through glass. It is clearer and more direct than reality and memories. The stories that were not told in the first 70 minutes and the mysteries that were not solved were compensated in the last 70 minutes. The words in the dream are true and false, but the emotion is sincere.
The little boy who lives in the hole has an eagle painted on his racket. The eagle is the nickname of the father of the white cat. This little boy also likes to lie like the white cat, so Luo Hongwu calls him the little white cat. He once told Wan Qiwen that he would teach their son to play table tennis. He played ping-pong with the little white cat, and in his dream took the role of a father.
Wan Qiwen is an enigmatic lover, not only in makeup looks like her mother, but also in lying. She loves watching movies and telling stories. She wants to eat wild grapefruit in summer and winter. She said she had aborted children and said she was infertile. Drive away the traveler's nightmare, and then marry the innkeeper. It was as if his mother lied to him that as long as a torch with cigarettes was lit, the bees would not sting and would be able to eat sweet honey. He bit the apple and swallowed the core with tears in his eyes. He forgave his mother's affair with the beekeeper, helped her to elope, sent her away in person, and completed the farewell ceremony that was missing in his childhood. This passage reminds me of "Journey to the West", where Supreme Treasure secretly helps a pair of lovers who are exactly like him and Zixia on the tower to find comfort.
Speaking of the sad scene while eating, I also like Jin Chengwu eating canned pineapples in "Chongqing Forest"; in "Ghost and Ghost", his wife sits on the ground and eats pizza for five minutes; in "Burning", Haimei pretends to peel Oranges eat oranges. When people are in pain, it seems that starving can bring a little sense of fulfillment.
Let's talk about the solo dance. The part of Chen Yongzhong's solo singing "Reason to Be Strong" is so beautiful. The body movements and hats are very good. I think of two classic solo dance clips, Leslie Cheung dances alone in front of the mirror in "The True Story", and Hae Young in "Burning", who is naked and dancing with her arms.
In the dream, he met Kaizhen again, a girl in red who looks a lot like Wan Qiwen. This girl is very simple and never lies. This girl believes in love and is an ideal version of Wan Qiwen. She hit the wild grapefruit on the slot machine. Wan Qiwen once said that if she finds a wild grapefruit, Luo Hongwu wants to fulfill her one wish. I guess her wish is very simple: to recite the spell on the title page of the green book with her beloved, and make the house spin. Now that Kaizhen has got wild grapefruit, he wants to fulfill this wish. So the spell was chanted, the house spun, and they kissed, and the kiss felt like flying. Living in space with Wan Qiwen is probably the same feeling.
Is Wan Qiwen in the karaoke hall? Why marry someone else without saying goodbye? Is Luo Hongwu her favorite person? These answers may not be important anymore. Love is as short as fireworks. If you want to be eternal, you must stop the clock, just like his father, and miss the old man in front of a clock that no longer goes. "Debris flow is not terrible, it is terrible to live in memory." In the dream, reconcile with yourself, say goodbye to the past, and wake up to a new year.
Let’s talk about the ritual sense of entering the dreamland. The ceremony of letting the audience and the male protagonist put on 3D glasses to enter the dreamland is a pleasant surprise, although I personally think that this part could have been done without 3D technology, it is too dark and a little hard to see clearly.
At the end, the moment when the dream is about to end is very "Inception", the fireworks that have been burning, just like the spinning top, whether staying in the dream or reality, stopping in the memory or moving forward, it is all up to the audience to decide, someone heard the cock crowing , some heard the gyro pause, some did not.
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