Lyla's Blog

Lost, Found

In the movie Lost, Found, lawyer Li Jie (Yao Chen) is fighting for the custody of her daughter with her ex-husband during the divorce, working hard to give the child the best life. Fortunately, the babysitter Sun Fang (Ma Yili) helps take care of the child as if she were her own child. One day after work, Li Jie found that the babysitter Sun Fang and her daughter disappeared without any message. In pursuit of the whereabouts of Sun Fang and her daughter, she received condemnation from her family and was even suspected by the police. Li Jie, who had almost collapsed, relied on amazing courage to embark on a journey of seeking her daughter alone. In the process of tracking, Li Jie gradually approached the life story of his nanny Sun Fang, her identity was originally a lie, and the truth also surfaced.

It turns out that this is all Sun Fang’s revenge, her daughter was struggling with a deadly disease that demands a liver transplantation. However, her husband was not willing to save his own child, he even refused to do the transplantation zygosity. Sun Fang was so desperate, she does multiple jobs, and eat the leftovers of others to save money, in order to give her daughter the treatment that she needs. But it is still not enough, she can’t afford the medical expenses, and eventually was forced out of the hospital due to arrears of too many medical costs. And at the same times, Li Jie came to the hospital and her daughter was placed into the same ward and exactly the same bed as Sun Fang’s daughter. Sun Fang then went home with her daughter, however, her eventually left her on a stormy night. The pain of her daughter’s death, the pressure of life, her failed marriage, all of the disappointment and misery had crushed her. She used a fake identity to approach Li Jie and eventually took her daughter as if her daughter still alive.

The third mother in this movie is Zhu Min, the ex-wife of a client of Li Jie’s divorce case, and she is also fighting for the custody of her children. Her education level is not low, but in order to take care of children and families, she has not been working after marriage. Her husband, who is known as “Mr. Wang”, has no worries for his family, and his career has developed very well. However, he had an affair and cheated on her. Zhu Min doesn’t want anything, she only wants her child, but her situation is clearly at a disadvantage, and she even ran to her husband’s attorney Li Jie to beg her. Seeing that the she clearly can’t win the case, she was desperate and committed a suicide.

The plight of Chinese women stems in part from the inability of women to understand and treat each other with kindness. Just like the nanny, her misfortune is mainly because she married the wrong person, but she did not dare to resist men, so she laid hands on li jie, the so-called revenge li jie, is actually one of her emotional export, can not fight “strong”, revenge on others. Just like li jie’s mother-in-law in the movie, as a mother, she should understand li jie’s difficulties best, but she does not blame her son for not doing his father’s duty, but blame li jie for breaking up a family, she even tried to take away her daughter.

Chinese people we say every day, why women are hard on woman, the reality is the upper generation woman that is suppressed by the man all one’s life however, continue the misery and begin to be hard on the next generation which is their daughter in law just like what Li Jie’s mother in law.

So long, my son

So long, my son is a film that tells the story of two married couples, and how they had adjust and adapt to the social and economic changes that were taking place in China from the 1980s to the present. Liu Yaojun and Shen Yingming were two close friends, they both married at the same times and even have kids at the same times in the 1980s, Liu Xing is Liu Yaojun’s son and Shen Hao is Shen Yingming’s son, when Liu xin was 12, he was playing with Shen Hao near a reservoir, Liu Xing can’t swim but Shen Hao kept instigate him to have a try. However, Liu Xing was growing to death, and Liu Yaojun’s family was so desperate and when his wife was pregnant again she was forced to have a abortion due to the one child policy and eventually she lost fertility so she can never be a mom again. Later they adopted a son and had given him the same name as their dead son. And later they moved to the big city for a living, life was difficult but their adopted son was clearly not understanding the hardship that they were going through and disappeared. Liu Yaojun and his wife eventually decide to go back to the place where they lost his son. Part melodrama, part critique of The Times, presenting us from the turmoil of the 1980s after the cultural revolution to prosperity.

The film tells of the sorrows and joys of several families in China during the three decades from the early 1980s to the early 21st century. Several groups of people’s life experiences, along with the flow of plot by the time and space switch, jointly portrayed a generation of people who were deeply hurt by policy changes (family planning, layoffs, etc.) after the reform and opening up. At the same time, the development of the fate of the characters is also the process of deconstructing the social structure. After the reform and opening up, China’s economy has developed at its fastest time, and at the same time, the policies affected countless people who are constantly undergoing dramatic changes. While improving the living conditions of most urban residents, it will gradually drop some people who cannot keep up, and they are inevitably injured in the wave of the times.

Actually, my mom had the same experience, she was forced to do a abortion when she was pregnant with my older brother, she already had my older sister at that times, due to the pain of losing my brother, when my mom was pregnant with me again, she decide to keep me and my family was fined. This movie is 3 hours long, but it’s definitely a good one and i highly recommend it.

Young Style

The film focus on the Chinese Gaokao, which is one of the most important things for every Chinese students. The story is simple, Ju Ran is a 12th grade students who confessed to the girls he had a crush on for three years using Tagore’s verses in front of all students and teachers when taking the graduation pictures. And then the most of the movie focuses on he repeating is 12th grade, because he messed up his Gao kao.

The movie revolves around four emotion lines, the friendship of Ju Ran and his classmates, Ju Ran with his parents, his teachers, as well as his feelings for Xiao Fan. I found the film quite hilarious, and it surely showed some typical phenomenons in the Chinese societies, parents holds high expectation on their children as well as high pressure and the typical Chinese exam-orientated education, students sits in classroom having endless exam. Students like Zhou Qiang, who comes from a poor family background, treat Gao Kao as his only way out, his only chance to change his life as well as his families. So he is always the student who worked till late night and he eventually when to Qing Hua university which is the very top university in China. A interesting plot is when the teachers encourage Qi Mingzhi to get into good university, she said that ‘ you don’t have rich dad and a powerful family, and you are not working hard on your own …. if you can’t go into a decent university, what other options do you have’. It seems like that we are all acquiescing to such social rules, we are to extend powerless to change, it is always easier for those who have a better background, the ‘ceiling’ that you try your best to reach is someone else’s starting point. There are lots of interesting line in the movie and i actually grew up being told so, such as ‘without pain it isn’t senior year, without effort it isn’t life’, ‘ even you break a leg, you must get in university’, ‘one point higher, you are surpassing thousands of people’ ‘if you can make it, make it, if you can’t, still you must make it’ ‘there is not retreat there’s only victory’.

Another plot that i remember the most, is the speech that the teacher gave in front of students parents. She said that ‘ Gao kao isn’t just for students, its also for the parents, so right now, i am going to ask the parents for a favor, nothing is more important than you children’s Gaokao, so if you are about to go bankrupt, hold on a bit longer,one hundred and fifty eight days longer, as to those who want a divorce, please hold it together,for another half year,the highest priority of yours is gaokao’. This is very true-to-life, i have seen too many real life cases that parents do not tell their kids that they have divorced and still pretend everything is fine and live together, sometimes even illness, they won’t tell their kids to distract them. This year, there’re around 10.71 million students who are going to taking Gao Kao, and Gao Kao is on 7th July this year. So i recommend to anyone who is interested in Gao Kao to watch this film Young Style.

Soulmate (2016)

The movie Soulmate that i am introducing today is a story of two girls, July and An sheng.

In the movie July is rather quiet; but the Ansheng has a more free-spirited personality, but unfortunately, she never have a stable family that takes care of her. These two girls met at the age of 13, making the two girls with different personalities the most important friends in each other’s lives. They prank together, go to school, basically they are as close as siamese twins. In the movie it said “Sometimes July is the shadow of An Sheng, sometimes An Sheng is the shadow of July. They read in the book that if you step on the shadow of a person, that person will not leave for a lifetime.” which is quite cheesy haha. In the movie, Ansheng has always been the wild kid, she goes where she will, and she always believe that she will die at the age of 27. As for July, she lives like any typical Chinese kid, she follows the plan of her parents, go to university, plan to get married on 27 years old, have a child on 28 and buy her own house on 30. However, their friendship seems to be weaken by a man. July’s boyfriend. They met in high school, and July found out that her boyfriend actually had a crush on Ansheng for quite a long time, all the way back to High school actually. She was crushed and eventually canceled the planed wedding. Eventually, they forgave each other, and July starts to travel all over the world and became the wild kid that Ansheng was. And Ansheng fells in a stable relationship and finally settled down. And eventually, July died during delivering, and became the girl who died at the age of 27.

I remember i first watch the film on the flight to London and i actually shed some tears for July. I think people always have two sides, or Ansheng is actually the other side of July. Girl like July seems like a very typical girl next door, but actually deep inside her, she is wild and fiery like her name, July the hot summer. And Ansheng, who seems so reckless, deviant and don’t care about everything actually craves for a stable relationship and for someone who is there for her, this may because she is brought up in a unstable family, she can’t get what she wants so she pretends that she doesn’t need it.

To Live (1994)

Today is my fifth day of quarantine, i have 9 more days to go.

This film is based on the novel of Yuhua ‘To Live’. The film is based on the Chinese Civil War and the political movements since the founding of New China. It reflects the fate of a generation of Chinese through the ups and downs of the male protagonist Fu Gui ’s life.

People are a grain of sand surging with the waves of the great era. The family of Fugui’s who lived in the turbulent times have experienced too many hardships and separation of life and death. Their only belief is to live well.When Fugui lost his wealth since he is a compulsive gambler, this cause his wife to leave him along with his daughter and his unborn son. For the first time, he realized that he had nothing and wandered on the streets. He was forced to make a living by doing shadow play. Like his puppet, he feels like he is manipulated by strings and can not decide his own destiny.

After this his wife is back along with his son, In addition to her daughter Fengxia. Although the family is poor, they are happy. It didn’t take long for a bayonet to cut through the shadow puppetry, and Fugui were captured and forced to join the army. On the battlefield, his belief was to go back alive to see his wife and children. Long Er a gentry, also the person who won Fugui’s wealth was criticized as counter-revolution and was shot to death, since Long Er refuse to donate any of his property to the communist people government. This terrified Fugui since he was a gentry as well, he’s afraid that he is going to be executed. However in the end, Youqin died in a car crash, her daughter bleeds to death during delivery.

“To live” is a film that spans a long period of time. History condenses into the fate of the individual. At the same time, the fate of the individual also reflects the fate of the society, allowing us to see the face of history more clearly. The protagonist Fu Gui’s experience is extremely miserable. He has experienced almost all the storms of that era, and more or less can see the life of our ancestors on his experience. Through the life experience of a person, the film covers the pain of life in which the destiny of man cannot be controlled in history, and derives the bitter smile between life and death, and the ruthless destiny. In the life of Fu Gui, he was a compulsive gambler. He gave up his wife and gave up his son to bet on money. The fear of five bullets knocked down the landlord Hao Kun and the grief when his son died. So much misfortune came to him like drama, destiny, helpless, he have no choice but to bear it. To live painfully today is to open your eyes tomorrow and continue to live painfully? What is the meaning of living? Perhaps the belief in living is that you must believe that you will live better and better, but this movie tells us: people live for the sake of living itself, not for anything other than living.

This movie involves a lot of political activities at the time that i can not explain perfectly, so i suggests people who are interested to watch themselves.

CUG: King of Heroes

Today is my fourth day of quarantine, everything is normal. By watching the news, i found that there’re actual diagnosed cases on the flight that i was on, but i think they are not in the same area as i was, because otherwise i will be in the hospital by now ( if there’re diagnosed around you, either is a or two row in front or behind, you will be sent to the hospital to quarantine). Today my temperature is 36.4.

Today, the film that i am introducing is based on an ancient mythology of China. Monkey King also known as Sun WuKong in Chinese, is the main character in the 16th century novel ‘ Journey To The West’. According to the novel, he was born out of a stone, and he gain power through Taoist practices. “he is able to support the pressing weight of two celestial mountains on his shoulders while running “with the speed of a meteor”.^[3] He is also extremely fast, able to travel 108,000 li (54,000 kilometres (34,000 mi)) in one somersault. Sun also knows the 72 Earthly transformations, which allow him to transform into various animals and objects. Sun Wukong is a skilled fighter, capable of defeating the best warriors of heaven. His hair possesses magical properties, capable of summoning clones of the Monkey King himself, and/or into various weapons, animals, and other objects. He has demonstrated partial weather manipulation abilities as well, and can stop people in place with fixing magic.” according to Wikipedia.

CUG : King of Heroes is a 3D animated movie based on the tradition Chinese mythology ‘Journey to the west’. One day, the mountain demon came to rob the boys and girls. Jiangliuer rescued a little girl and caused the mountain demon to chase him. He fled and ran into Waxing Mountain and accidentally released Wukong from seal. After Wukong’s freedom, he only wanted to return to Huaguo Mountain, but in order to return the favor to Jingliuer, he escorted him and the little girl to his destiny. Along the way, Bajie and the White Dragon Horse also appeared due to their destiny, but they were downcast and was not as heroic as they used to be. Sun Wukong was reborn in a predicament, pressed under the Wuzhi Mountain, bound by an iron chain. After he broke free, he lost his mana, which makes him an ordinary monkey. The mountain god also mocked him as good-for-nothing, and the monster trampled him. After experiencing all kinds of hardships, he found that it was not the iron chains in his hands that bound him, but the weakness of his own inner heart, to escape from the truth, in this paradox, he gradually lost himself, gave up himself, and wandered in confusion. Accompanied by Jiang Liu’er, he retrieved his lost self and his dignity and honor as Qitian Dasheng. He understood that what restrained himself is his own demon. Only by conquering himself can he break free from the shackles and become the real Monkey King. In the end, he was reborn again became a true Qitian.

As a Chinese, i grew listen to the story of Qitian, he kind of represent a symbol of my Childhood. The film not only tells the story of Qitian, but also presented a vivid visual image with Chinese characteristics.

Einstein and Einstein

Today is my third day of quarantine and everything is fine, however i got some allergy reaction, i am from the southern part of China but now i am in the very north of China, my body is not doing well, i got rashes on my face and all over my legs, and i am suffering from stomachache for three days straight because i just can’t cope with the different diet habit. But everything is fine, my test result is negative.

The movie that i am introducing today is actually i found very relatable to some extent. The name of the movie Einstein and Einstein refers to the leading character’s two dogs, both dogs named Einstein. But actually the Chinese name of the movie is Dog and Thirteen, a thirteen years old teenage girls( Li Wan) and her dogs. The movie starts with Li Wan’s father changed her extra-curricular classes into english tutoring, and Li Wan is very upset about it, but her father scolded her and said that it’s for her benefit. Li lives with her grandparents, her parents had divorced long ago and her father later remarried and soon had a little boy. The story is set years ago, and her father and grandpa was very patriarchal, her grandpa obviously value her little brother more than her, that they spent a lot of times on naming, but Li Wan’s name is by contrast very random. Due to the unpleasant talk that they have between father and daughter, Li Wan’s father surprised her with a puppy and she named it Einstein. As a kid who is not valued enough and constantly ignored by her parents, she soon consider Einstein as her best buddy and formed strong bond with Einstein. However, incidents happened when her grandfather took Einstein with him to grocery market, he didn’t leash the dog, Einstein went missing. Instead of trying to find the dog, her step mother bought her a pair of skating shoes to distract her attention, but still she soon noticed the missing of Einstein. She is very upset, instead of trying to comfort Li, her father said that she needs to grow up and stop being childish and whining about this. Li went out and trying to look for Einstein but she didn’t find him. After this, her parents tricked her that they had found the dog but what they did is they found new dog to replace Einstein and ironically gave the dog the same name. I won’t go into details and people who are interested in the film can figure out themselves.

In the movie, there are two specific plot that draw my attention. At the beginning of the film when Li was about to be out the door to school, her grandma forced her to drink milk, but Li can’t obviously do not like milk and immediately spit it out, this shows that her grandma clearly does not really pay attention to Li’s living habits. And towards the end of the film, Li’s brother also shows disgust towards milk, which appear to be very interest to me, it felt to me like a cycle. Later in the film, Li’s father took her to a dinner with a bunch of his peer colleagues, her dad ask her to toast to his colleague with a glass of milk, which again she does not like milk at all. The second plot is when her father belittle and teased her interest in front of colleague as a joke to please them.

I find the movie quite relatable, my life is pretty much arranged by my families. Especially before 18 years old, the way that i look and the clothes that i wear basically need to follow their ideas, i never dyed my hair, i never cut short of my hair, because they don’t like it, i have never go out at night, i am always at home after 5:00 pm. When i graduated from middle school, i supposed to have two months of summer vacation. But no, i went to four supplementary tutoring (Maths, Physics, Chemistry and Biology), 8 hours a day. Because the competition is going to huge in high school. I do understand that they love me and want the best of me, but sometime i just want to choose for myself but i never said anything, i just nod to everything that they want me to do. When i finally graduated from high school and turned 18, i dyed my hair orange, i have to say it feels impressive, i remember that my mom frowned when she saw my hair for the first time. Each of us has gone through a time when no one understood, but we were forced to accept all the rules of the adult world. And on the poster of the film, it says ‘ every growth is a murder’.

Anyway I hope everyone can peacefully embrace the world, love, recognition, respect and reconciliation.

Better Days

Today is my third day of quarantine life, everything is alright, my temperature is normal (36.7), i am not coughing. However, it is getting real boring, my daily routine is basically sleep, wake up and eat and go back to sleep. Sometimes i just stand by the window to wait and see staff of the hotel coming in and out of the hotel with our meals, which is the only exciting things basically, is to eat, the food are quite nice. I got 12 days to go.

The film that i am recommending today is about violence in school which is called Better Days. The film is set in the time period before the Gaokao, a girl who is the victim of school violence was found dead in the school and was soon being identified as a suicide incident, students in the school were busying with texting and taking pictures, the leading character Chen Nian covered the girl with her uniform. Her action made her the next target, she was madly retaliated for calling the police. Those who did nothing was safe but people who tried to stop the violence was implicated and bullied. People who’t realize the seriousness until someone is killed because of it. In the film, well-off wealthy students are actually the initiator of the evil of the school bullying, while the dawdling punk is the one who take action to protect the weak. In the film, when Chen does not fight back, she got bullied, when she fights back, she got bullied, when Chen is protected by the Xiao Bei (the dawdling punk who is protecting her), Wei Lai (the girl who bullies Chen Nian), the bully got even worse. It’s like Chen can never get rid of Wei until Wei was pushed by Chen and fell of the stairs and died.

Sometimes in real life, i found children, teenagers quite scary, and it is because they do not know how to handle themselves, they sometimes are very impulsive, they always push things to the extreme end. In news i heard kids shoved a girl form a subway platform because the girl was refused to share her snacks. Also, teenager who strip off the girls clothes and insult the girl and spread it all over the internet triumphantly. Of course i understand it is only a small portion of the whole population, still their impact is huge. Aggression is to some extent biological determined, but it can also be learned by imitation and cognitive priming like violent video game and social media, in this case, i think parents need to pay more attention and spend more times with them and guide them. But anyway, this is the film i would like to recommend today, and you could find out what really happened to Chen Nian yourself. Bye Bye.

The captain

Before i introduce the movie, i am going to keep a shot diary of my quarantine life. I landed in China on 29th, and immediately was sent to quarantine with the fellow passengers on the flight. When i got off the plane, medics of CDC led us to series of test like blood test, body temperature measurement and RT-PCR test.After we done the test, we were sent to the official hotel that is assigned by the government. We are asked to measure and report body temperature twice a day, meals are provided as well, every floor has two medics and security staff with all-over protective suit like the picture below, they need to work for 6 hours straight can’t even eat, drink. Today is the second of my quarantine life , my body temperature is normal(36.7), no coughing, no breathing difficulty, everything is normal and i hope it’s going to be this way for the rest of 13 days, i am going to be released from quarantine on 13th of March.

Now i am going to introduce the movie The Captain. The film is based on the real incident of sichuan airlines flight 3U8633’s successful handling of the special situation on May 14, 2018. It tells the story of the members of the “heroic flight crew of China civil aviation” and 119 passengers who encountered extreme danger and faced multiple tests of strong wind, low temperature and cabin pressure release at an altitude of 10,000 meters, the right side of the cockpit windshield suddenly broke off, the co-pilot most of the body was suddenly sucked out. Actually, there’s a similar incident that happened in UK as well, British Airline flight 5390 is a scheduled flight from Birmingham to Mallorca, Spain. On June 10, 1990, during the flight, a windshield in the cockpit flew off and sucked the captain out. But thanks to the efforts of the co-pilot, the plane landed safely in Southampton and the captain miraculously survived

In the film, shortly after the plane’s departure, the windshield broke (it turned out that a screw with a smaller radius was unable to withstand the high pressure), and at 9,800 meters, the co-pilot was sucked out of the window and faced extreme danger, leaving the cockpit in a mess and the entire cabin was in a panic. The crisis came unannounced,The positive response of the aircrew, the cooperation of the ground personnel, the suspension of the air force training in order to keep clear for 3U8633, the continuous call of ground personnel, led to a climax, as for the thunder clouds, it is quite exaggerating, in searching for information, it said in the original event the weather is normal which might be a important factor that contribute to the safe landing.

However, there’s also some major flows about the film as well, for example, some unnecessary character. The film also demonstrated the details and professionalism pf the crew members, some details that we won’t normally see in life, they spend hours on preparations and checking. As for the passengers, they experienced feelings of roller coaster. Among them, there are veterans who are going to visit comrades-in-arms, couples, rock teenagers and foreign passengers. From the box office and audience popularity perspectives, the movie is definitely a success. However, their expressions are too plain, It is specifically manifested in the harmony and quietness before the accident and the panic after the accident. The film lacks the in-depth description of the psychological struggle and tangles during the life and death disaster, that is, the inner description. The film reviews and tells this thrilling event in all directions, and also expresses its tribute to the heroic captain Liu Chuanjian.However, there are still slight regrets in specific details and scene scheduling, and it is not very complete in the artistic shaping of the film. his is also the driving force and direction for Chinese films to continue to explore and develop in disaster films.

NeZha (2019)

NeZha is a protection deity of the Chinese traditional religion. It is believed that NeZha is based on the Hindu methodology, and relate to the son of Kubera. however, as a Chinese, we gain our knowledge of NeZha from a book called the FengShenYanYi, which is a novel about gods-and-demons that is written in the Ming dynasty. The book is set in the Shang dynasty (1600-1046 BC), NeZha’s farther Lijing was a military commander in ChengTang and later became the king, NeZha’s mother is Lady Yin, she was pregnant for 3 years and 6 months before her son was born, NeZha was a ball of flesh when he was born. After he was born, his father think he is a demon and attacked the ball of flesh, and then NeZhan came out of the ball of flesh as a boy instead of infant, and he can even walk and speak immediately after he was born. After this, he became the student of the immortal Taiyi Zhenren. At the time, people of Chengtang will sacrifice food to the dragon king Ao Guang for rain, however Ao Guang wants to eat boys and girls instead of food and caught one of NeZha’s friend, in this case, NeZha was mad and fought with the subordinate of Ao Guang, so the dragon king later sent his third son to take care of NeZha but he was eventually killed by NeZha. Ao Guang was mad and threatened his family for flooding Chengtang, NeZha then committed a suicide and ‘carving up his own flesh and dismembering his bones’ to pay back his parent for giving birth to him. However, he was eventually brought to life again by his teacher.

The film that i am introducing today is loosely based on this story and called NeZha (2019) . It is a 3D animation film that actually was the highest grossing film film of all time in China. The plot in the film is slightly different to the actual story, but it helps to have a basic understanding of the original story since in China basically everyone knows the story of NeZha and the film was made with the assumption of people knowing the story.

In the film, NeZha was derived from a chaos pearl that is powerful good and evil at the same times. The pearl was then decided into two parts which represents the good and the evils, and the evil components of the pear was cursed that it is going to be destroyed in three years, Taiyi Zhenren was supposed to give the good part to Lijing to be born as his son Nezha, but accident happens, NeZha is born as the evil part of the pearl and have a demonic nature. The good component of the Pearl was stolen by Shen and eventually reincarnated as the Dragon King’s son Ao Bing. The film revolves around the discussion of whether people should surrender to their fate and stereotype. In this case, because NeZha was born out of the evil, people assume he is demonic, they distance his, scold him, not believe in him regardless of what he does. He was so let down and became friends with Ao Bing who eventually betrayed him. And in the final Battle with Ao Bing, he said that he is the master of his own destiny. The film also showed the heartwarming father and son relationship which is quite different to the original story of the enmity between them.

Overall, the film is definitely a very successful animation film , with a fun twist of the traditional Chinese methodology. People in Chengtang is actually very typical in the real life, they judge people with preconceived notion/ stereotype, and this forms a irrational belief of prejudice and eventually turned into discrimination. I do recommend people to watch this film enjoy this film and to find out what eventually happened between these characters, this film might look quite exotic to the non Chinese audience, but i guess this is the fun part of watching movie, to enjoy different culture.