Twenty-five years after its release, "Sweet Honey" is still the most worth watching Chinese romance film.
1
What can become a classic love movie is often not just about love.
The story of "Sweet Honey" is just like its English name - Comrades, Almost a Love Story (comrades, almost a love story).
Chen Kexin said in an interview: "To put it bluntly, "Sweet Honey" is about two people who went to a big city from a small place." Hong Kong directors always secretly play tricks in English titles, such as Wong Kar Wai's "Spring Comes Together", clearly two people They are always torturing each other, but the English translation is "Happy Togather". When you see some film critics making fun of it, don't be fooled by the name "Sweet Honey", this is not a sweet romance at all. I feel that the title of the film directly gives me a hint of sourness, because the sweetness of being together gives birth to the bitterness of separation at the same time. I can't think of a good sentence for a while, but everyone my age must have heard of a famous non-mainstream QQ signature: "We are sugar, sweet to sad." (Please substitute your own Martian font)
But if "Sweet Honey" is not a love story, director Chen Kexin and screenwriter Anxi may firmly oppose this statement. I'm not the first film critic to make a big fuss about English names. I've seen many people say: "The title is almost a love story, so it's not a love story." People who say this have thought about why the film is before and after the movie. Did you add a black and white train clip? Because Chen Kexin thought about this scene first when the entire script, story, and characters had nothing. The core of this story is that two people go round and round and finally get married. In fact, they don't know that they have met each other a long time ago. Chen Kexin said in the director's commentary track: "It doesn't matter whether we want to shoot two new immigrants or not, the most important thing is to shoot this. In the end, go back to the earliest." This original concept is here, and it is forced to say it only through the English name It's not a love story, it's actually taken out of context.
If you look closely at the English name, there is a word "Comrades" before the comma. Read it together again, is it like the murmur between the lovers of the two protagonists: the boy says everything is successful, and the girl returns to friendship. The two of them meet frequently and lie to themselves that they are good friends. Comrade Li Xiaojun, your purpose in coming to Hong Kong is not me, and my purpose in coming to Hong Kong is not you. We were almost a love story.
It was almost a love story. The love between Li Xiaojun and Li Qiao is forever "a little bit worse". The temptation does not look at the timing, but love is exquisite. They separated three times: at first, their life goals were not the same. Li Xiaojun wanted to marry his girlfriend in his hometown, and Li Qiao wanted to make a lot of money; then their emotional situation was very embarrassing, Li Xiaojun was married, and Li Qiao also followed Leopard brother; finally Their fate to get together is too shallow, and the two people in prosperous New York always pass by each other, so close and so far.
So at the beginning, they who didn't know each other once arrived in Hong Kong back to back and sitting on the same train, just like the hero and heroine of "go left, go right" in Jimmy's comics. It's not a love story at all.
But the beauty of the movie is to make up for all kinds of regrets in the world.
So in the end, on the streets of New York, the two met again, and they smiled at each other. This time, there are no more "nears". This time is a love story written by Eileen Chang: You meet the person you want to meet among thousands of people, and in the endless wilderness of thousands of years, there is no one step earlier or one step later, just to catch up Now, there is nothing else to say, only a soft question: "Oh, are you here too?"
2
A classic movie that can become a generation's memory often cannot be purely planned.
Achieving perfection requires many surprises. The first is that when the screenwriter Anxi was writing the script, the news of Teresa Teng's sudden death shocked her, so the movie also changed from the original "big city and little love" to today's "sweet honey".
The second is that Maggie Cheung played Li Qiao instead of Faye Wong, which is undoubtedly the best accident that made this movie. It was originally set that both the hero and heroine were new immigrants from the mainland to Hong Kong, so Chen Kexin identified the combination of Liming and Faye Wong. However, Faye Wong declined, and instead chose Maggie Cheung, who was considered the most unlikely in the eyes of everyone at the time. In fact, even Chen Kexin himself has no confidence, but he thinks Maggie Cheung's acting skills are enough to cover up her fashion sense in appearance. And Maggie Cheung grew up in Chinatown in the UK when she was a child, and has a certain Cantonese accent. Such details can also increase the realism of the character. Because Maggie Cheung can't speak Mandarin well, in order to speak Cantonese reasonably, Li Qiao changed from a Beijing girl to a Guangzhou girl.
This change is really the finishing touch in shaping the character of Li Qiao! Just imagine, if Li Qiao in the movie is the female version of Li Xiaojun, a Tianjin and a Beijinger come to Hong Kong to work hard to keep each other warm, it will be a lot less tasteful all of a sudden. The mainlanders who pretended to be Hong Kongers suddenly gave the character more layers. Li Qiao didn't want to be seen by others, and he knew Mandarin but only spoke Cantonese. But when she saw Li Xiaojun who was at a loss in McDonald's, she would speak Mandarin to help him out. Li Qiao "fudges" others to sign up for English classes while taking the commission, but he will study there while working as a cleaner. Li Qiao is a little vain and cunning, but she is actually very hardworking, affectionate, and really cute. Li Qiao and Brother Leopard are not because Brother Leopard can give her a material life that Li Xiaojun can't give, but Li Xiaojun gave her a gold bracelet like Xiaoting, but Brother Leopard has a tattoo of Mickey Mouse on her back to make her happy. Facing the down-and-out Brother Leopard and the brave Li Xiaojun, Li Qiao couldn't leave at this time, so Brother Leopard called her "Silly Girl".
When we talk about this movie, the one that can't be ignored is Maggie Cheung. There are all kinds of beauties in Hong Kong girls, the gorgeous, handsome, pure and lovely... but they often show themselves in whatever role they play. Maggie Cheung has never been the most beautiful, but she alone can achieve thousands of looks and amorous feelings on the screen, and act like what. The coquettish and pompous proprietress in "New Dragon Inn", the charming but ignorant and simple snake spirit in "Green Snake", and the charming but melancholy cheongsam beauty in "In the Mood for Love". Even off the screen, she is eccentric and does her own way. Chen Kexin commented on her: she will never live in the label that others imagined for her. Maggie Cheung once said that Li Qiao in "Sweet Honey" is the most similar to herself in all the roles she has played. Maggie Cheung, who debuted as Miss Hong Kong, didn't have the kind of innate aura of self-taught in her acting skills at the beginning. In "Police Story", there is no need for a stand-in to complete high-risk action scenes. But like Li Qiao, Maggie Cheung is smart and hardworking, and she learns quickly. Her ability is worthy of her ambition. She constantly hones her acting skills, from "vase" to "drama tyrant", and has become a Chinese actress. The actress with the most awards.
There is a saying in the industry: "A good director is half dependent on choosing actors." Although it is a joke, movies and actors really achieve each other. It can be said that Maggie Cheung contributed a classic crying scene to the film "Sweet Honey" that can leave a mark in Chinese film history. When Li Qiao saw Brother Leopard lying in the morgue, it was rumored that Maggie Cheung was laughing. The director didn't stop and could only cry hard. Maybe such a story is more interesting, so it is widely circulated. But in fact, director Chen Kexin has repeatedly clarified that this is not the case. On the contrary, this is a performance designed by Maggie Cheung herself.
Looking at this passage carefully, Maggie Cheung smiled twice, and there are many facial details and interactions with the scenery. In the movie, at the request of Li Qiao, the coroner turned his body over. Seeing the back, she couldn't help but smile, because she remembered the first time she saw the Mickey Mouse tattoo. She looked around at the coroner beside her blankly again and smiled a second time, because she thought life was too ironic, did all this really happen? Then her eyes wandered, her brows twitched, her facial features twisted together, and her tears overflowed uncontrollably. When Li Qiao focused on the Mickey Mouse again, a clear and cruel fact told her that the man who would make her happy and shelter her from the wind and rain was no longer in this world.
Brother Leopard is actually more popular than Li Xiaojun. Even Chen Kexin thinks that his favorite character in the movie is Brother Leopard. Many people especially like the line when Brother Leopard persuaded Li Qiao to leave before running away, "Silly girl, go home and take a shower. When you get up tomorrow, the streets are full of good men, all of whom are better than Brother Leopard." Chen Kexin said to Zeng Zhiwei: "You forget that you are Zeng Zhiwei, give me a look back to Chow Yun-fat's The True Color of a Hero."
3
Of course, it is not just a coincidence that can become a film with numerous awards and honors.
"Sweet Honey" is an excellent film with a high degree of completion. That year, he won the grand slam of nine Academy Awards, and was named the second place in the top ten best films of 1997 by the American "Time Magazine". Nearly twenty years later, he was also invited to participate in the "Classic Section" of the 70th Venice Film Festival.
Among Chinese directors, I can only recognize Chen Kexin who can express the living beings in the 1980s and 90s under the torrent of the changing times. From "Sweet Honey" to "Partners in China" to "Win the Championship", the secret of the Hong Kong director's ability to tell the mainland so true is that he thinks he knows not mainlanders, but migrants. Chen Kexin keenly captures the joys, sorrows and sorrows of the big and small people in the rapidly developing and prosperous city. Film critics do not always like to analyze the film techniques of commercial film directors, and once a film's character story is too exciting, the language of the picture is often ignored. I deliberately went through a lot of film analysis of "Sweet Honey", but I didn't see any one that talked about the shots and editing.
How can you not shoot naked scenes directly, but you can show the inseparable love between lovers? If the West has a handprint left by Ross slipping off the misty car window in the Titanic scene. Then we in the East have the buttons that Li Xiaojun and Li Qiao tied and untied in "Sweet Honey". Before this scene, two people were in a small and shabby house, washing dishes together after eating dumplings. The hands of the two people would inevitably touch each other back and forth, warm and romantic. Then Li Qiao said, "The rain seems to have stopped outside." Li Xiaojun responded by picking up a handkerchief and wiping her hands. "Your hands are so cold." Li Qiao added, "I think I should go." I went to get the clothes, but the camera stopped for a long time on Li Qiao's hand holding the towel.
Chen Kexin said that he didn't know how to shoot two people who suddenly fell in love. The concept of this scene is very simple. "It was originally getting dressed, but in the end it became undressing." This was the first intimate scene the two actors filmed, and it was also the first intimacy in the movie. The director was afraid that the two of them would not be able to let go. As a result, "After the first shot, everyone was stupid. It was so good, and the audience applauded."
It is estimated that I am the only one on the Internet who wants to mention the only action scene in the movie. It was Li Qiao who saw Li Xiaojun while he was being repatriated from the United States. She got out of the car and ran after her. Many scenes flashed by, but they gathered all the key elements that recur in the film: McDonald's, bicycles, Mickey Mouse.
McDonald's is a symbol of the city, and it is also the place where Li Xiaojun and Li Qiao met. In the movie, it is a symbol with multiple meanings. First of all, it is the first foreign brand to enter Hong Kong, and Chen Kexin believes that it is part of Hong Kong's memory. Secondly, he is a "high-end restaurant" that was not available in the mainland in the 1980s. Li Xiaojun yearned for and admired it, just like many mainlanders were looking forward to Hong Kong at that time. In the end, McDonald's appeared in the hands of the immigration officer who escorted Li Qiao. A big close-up, cheap and greasy, returned to its essence in the hands of the Americans - a perfunctory fast food in the car.
The bicycle is the symbol of Li Xiaojun. Li Xiaojun, carrying Li Qiao, rode a bicycle through the streets of Hong Kong, humming "Sweet Honey" together. The initial love between the two was born on a bicycle. That scene is a classic, like the first love in everyone's heart. The relationship between the two became close because Li Xiaojun rode a bicycle and was willing to run errands for Li Qiao at a loss. Then after the two broke up for the first time, Li Xiaojun's bicycle was left idle in the alley, and even the bell was rusted and rotted. It can be said that the bicycle is also a symbol of love between the two. Later in the chase scene, Li Qiao also suddenly saw Li Xiaojun in a white shirt riding a bicycle to deliver the goods. She ran wildly, desperately chasing, but got lost in the middle of the crowded Times Square. At this time, Li Qiao had already experienced many vicissitudes, but the figure in his past memories was the same as before, the young man in white riding a bicycle, as if time had never flowed. I wonder if she will be confused for a moment, standing in the crowd in confusion, what she sees is just a phantom of love.
Mickey Mouse is the symbol of Brother Leopard. In addition to tattoos, Li Qiao first wore a Mickey Mouse logo shirt in the massage parlor, and later, with Brother Leopard, Mickey Mouse dolls were also placed at home. But the most interesting thing is the Mickey Mouse hanging on the rearview mirror. The old lover, who had not been in touch for a long time, was speechless all the way. The Mickey Mouse who was lying between the two of them seemed to be like Brother Leopard sitting between them, and the car was filled with embarrassment. Many people have noticed this Mickey Mouse, but what everyone probably didn't notice is that when Teresa Teng appeared, Mickey Mouse disappeared! Take Li Xiaojun getting out of the car from the window, and then slap Li Qiao for a close-up. The two shots are switched multiple times until they chat through the window. Li Xiaojun said goodbye to Li Qiao, and his back went farther and farther. Li Qiao slumped on the steering wheel in frustration, but honked the whistle like a god. Li Xiaojun turned around and hit the two people in close-up again. Maggie Cheung's micro-expression is very delicate, you can see her brows are affectionate, her lips are slightly trembling, and Liming also performed an exciting clean and handsome. The distance between them kept getting closer, and Li Qiao's momentary pause was full of contradictions and hesitations, but her hand involuntarily stroked her lover's neck, and the two passionately kissed each other.
"Sweet Honey" has many passages worth exploring. For example, after leaving the jewelry store, the two quarreled and broke up for 3 minutes and 10 seconds, and the three people crowded in the narrow corridor at the opening of Li Qiao Real Estate Company. The director, screenwriter and actor played a perfect cooperation like a movie textbook. This scene will not be the first scene that can be remembered, so I want to talk about it in particular. It is this kind of delicacy that makes "Sweet Honey" a highly finished film that you will never tire of watching.
4
To be a movie that resonates with me, it must be related to my own life experience, and it can inspire me to write thousands of words for it.
The key word in Chen Kexin's films will not be "wandering", but "migration". Chen Kexin, who was born in Hong Kong, went to Thailand with his parents at the age of 12 and went to study in the United States at the age of 18. Always wandering, he can easily empathize with the loneliness of strangers. "Wandering is too romantic. For me, it is forced migration. As a child of overseas Chinese, migration has been engraved in my genes." If you go to see Chen Kexin's movies without the background of Chinese culture and chronological memory, you will definitely lose something. However, it does not mean that his films will lose their color because of this. Anyone who has wandered in a strange city will probably be moved by Chen Kexin's films.
The first time I watched "Sweet Honey", I was still in high school. At that time, I neither fell in love nor left home. Except for being shocked by Maggie Cheung's god-level acting skills of laughing and crying, it was really lonely.
The first time I watched it, I just thought it was a touching and good movie. Recently, when I watched "Sweet Honey", I could see the lingering words and helplessness in adult love. At the age of 16, I left home to study in the United States. At the age of 25, I left the familiar California again and followed my lover to the cold Canada. "Sweet Honey" is worth watching again and again. Different stages of life show different tastes. Although the times and environments are different, the experience of being a stranger in a foreign land alone is truly portrayed.
The nervousness in a strange language environment, the excitement of applying for the first bank card, the mood of checking the balance of the ATM machine... During the Spring Festival, Li Xiaojun and Li Qiao were busy setting up stalls to make money, and I was in the library all night rushing due ; Stranger, it is not that life is unhappy, but it is more difficult to suffer when alone, and it is more difficult to bear when frustrated.
My most painful and hopeless time, a very dramatic story happened. On that day, I stayed at a friend's house to relax, but my mental state was actually very bad, and I had not found a way out in the face of graduation. My parents made a video call at night because something happened at home. Under the blow of two things, I suddenly got into despair and just wanted to cry. But because I was at a friend's house, I was very ashamed, so in the middle of the night, I went out for a walk. Walking to the middle of a bridge, I was embarrassed to make a sound even though no one was around.
Just as I was crying silently against the river, a foreign girl of the same age as me fell while riding a bicycle over the side of the bridge! I was about to wipe the tears off my face and went to ask her if she needed help. But she let the bicycle lean to one side, sat motionless on the ground, and burst into tears. I knew right away that she, like me, was a sad person who walked alone in the middle of the night. Falling is just an excuse for her to vent her emotions. - "The collapse of adults is often in an instant."
I stood far away and didn't go up to comfort the girl. After a while, she stopped her tears, and like nothing happened, she picked up her bicycle and walked away. She never knew that on the night of her collapse, someone not far away shared her painful emotions for a short time. Because I know that someone in this world is crying at the same time as me, I suddenly feel less lonely and miserable.
A good movie is the same feeling. When you are sad, the protagonist on the screen is sad with you, and someone weeps with you, it seems that you are not so lonely.
Refer to "Sweet Honey" director's commentary soundtrack "Easy to see +" interview with Chen Kexin (video) How did Maggie Cheung become a generation of actresses? By Zhihu Shi Tangyuan
The film review was first published on my WeChat public account "Xia Miao Summeow" (ID: summeow1995)
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