The "Young and Dangerous" series of films advocates friendship, loyalty, heroism, and Chen Haonan and other characters are admired and imitated by many teenagers. They forget how to start, and being a gangster can also have a strong sense of pride.
You can pretend to be cool, show off your power, and be domineering, at least
The temptation to keep people from being bullied is really hard to resist.
The 1990 gangster movie "Goodfellas" clearly explained what attracts teens to gangs and crime.
Henry, 12, wanted to join a gang before he went out to work odd jobs. Because he felt that those guys enjoyed some kind of "privilege" and could do whatever they wanted. Be part of a gang and he'll be able to survive in a world full of nobody
stand out from the crowd in the environment, no longer an "ordinary person".
It is this desire to be "superior" that ignites the flames of crime.
Modern society is maintained by law, and the rampant gangs will eventually be suppressed and sanctioned. While the "Young and Dangerous" series and other gangster-themed movies have become popular, they have also been controversial.
Those students who learned Chen Haonan's "walking the rivers and lakes" and failed to "play" in time, when they realized that everything was just a heroic dream, could only make amends. Some have even committed crimes and can only be punished in juvenile detention centers or prisons.
Ekin Cheng, who played Chen Haonan, apologized through "The Ice Room of Nine Dragons" . The too romantic and passionate "Young and Dangerous" really misled a lot of people, but it was definitely not intentional.
Just imagine if it was filmed like "Goodfellas" , it would not cause unnecessary misunderstandings.
When the movie reveals the truth, shatters the dream about gangsters, and the audience sees the ugly reality behind the gangsters' beauty, they naturally don't want to get into trouble.
To break a dream, you must first create a dream.
In the first half of "Goodfellas" , director Martin Scorsese first created a dream-like "ideal society of gangsters".
After Henry joined the gang, he was like a duck to water. Under the protection of the boss, he could not go to school at all. At the age of 13, he made more money than many adults in the vicinity, basically what he wanted. Even if he is caught by the police, he can walk out of the court with a smile.
Being able to experience this freedom above the law in gangster movies is an important reason why audiences like gangster movies. In real life, it is often difficult to do it just because it dares to do it. Gangster characters like Henry and Chen Haonan have replaced the audience to vent the wildness hidden in their hearts.
Compared with the "Gangster Big Brother" and "Godfather" series, the structure of "Goodfellas" is more concise and clear.
From start to finish, it's enough to know just one gangster.
Every gang has a leader, and in a certain neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York, in the 1950s, the gang leader here was Paulie. Like Vito Corleone in "The Godfather," he's not a vicious criminal.
Henry, the male protagonist, started working with Paulie's capable cadre, Tuddy, who was equivalent to Tom Corleone's military division, who was mainly responsible for operations.
The job of fighting and killing is mainly entrusted to Jimmy, a killer and thief who started killing people at the age of sixteen. He is brave and resourceful, and often achieves his goals without using violent means.
Henry met Jimmy through Paulie's introduction and started doing things for him. Henry was appreciated and used by Jimmy for his heroic performance during his initial arrest.
At the same time, Jimmy and Tommy became good brothers, and Henry formed a small team of three with them.
(Film) In 15 minutes, Martin Scorsese completed the formation of the protagonist group.
Playing Tommy is Joe Pesci. After appearing in "Raging Bull" and "Once Upon a Time in America" , he finally had a very brilliant solo performance and won the Oscar for best supporting actor in one fell swoop. In 1990, he also released a "Home Alone" , in which his stupid thief image and Tommy's violent and morbid contrast were huge, showing what is called the world's top acting skills.
In "Goodfellas" , the improvised performance of the famous film history, Joe Pesci temporarily added a scene to himself, "scared" Ray Liotta and others at a loss.
Sources say that Martin Scorsese asked Joe Pesci to direct the scene himself. Since it was a dialogue between positive and negative, the dazed appearance of Ray Liotta and others should be reserved on the spot. Their inner monologue is actually, is there a paragraph in the script? The shot on Joe Pesci was taken later.
This riff reinforces Tommy, who explodes in self-esteem and doesn't tolerate any mockery. Even if Henry, an old acquaintance, felt that something was wrong, he would fight back immediately to gain the upper hand.
Jimmy was played by Robert De Niro, who was an absolute big brother at the time.
Because he has the heaviest weight, and Jimmy is the boss of the protagonist group, the promotional poster puts him in the middle. He's actually in a supporting role this time around, and the real central character is Ray Liotta's Henry.
Two legendary movie stars played for Ray Liotta, and even if there is no personal honor, his acting career has no regrets.
After the gangster's dream was completed, the old horse began to smash it in the second half of the movie. Besides, there was no conflict, the protagonists were smooth, and the story would not be good.
He arranged two storylines to destroy Henry's free-spirited gang life.
The first is business. Henry couldn't be invulnerable after all, and the "FBI typist incident" ruined his efforts, and also implicated the boss Paulie.
The second is family. The so-called greater the profit, the greater the risk, Henry has been doing criminal things, his wife Karen has been worried, plus it is the default rule that gangsters can take care of a third party or even a fourth party, Karen can't bear to fall into a collapse, it is human Common sense.
Faced with unprecedented challenges in life, Henry did not give up easily. He put his hope of turning around on drugs.
To this end, he embarked on a road of no return. Broken promises, continued cheating, betrayed friends, and he became the downright bad guy.
This is the important difference between "Goodfellas" and "Young and Dangerous".
In fact, the latter also set the bad guys to die, and Chen Haonan and other positive characters couldn't get much better, telling the audience, intentionally or unintentionally, that being a gangster would not end well.
Then why do some people still want to be Chen Haonan? Because the movie describes him as a hero, this has not changed from beginning to end, the hero will suffer some setbacks and disasters, and some passionate young people are still willing and courageous to bear it. No matter what criticism they encountered, they considered themselves decent.
The former turns the protagonist into a bad guy, a bad guy who is embarrassed. I believe most people don't want to end up like him.
The Chinese title "Goodfellas" is a literal translation of the English title. Henry and his gang are obviously bad, so why use "good" to describe them?
It should mean that they were originally good people.
Henry, who was smooth sailing in the first half, was not particularly bad, as can be seen from several episodes.
When reprocessing the corpse with Jimmy and Tommy, only Henry would vomit like a normal person when he saw a decomposed corpse, indicating that he had no experience of this kind of thing.
And when everyone was gambling at the bar, Tommy suddenly burst into a rage and shot. Henry instinctively covered his ears, indicating that he rarely shot, or even never shot.
Throughout the movie, Henry never killed a single person with his own hands. He is different from the two murderous guys like Jimmy and Tommy, because his original intention of joining the gang was for a sense of accomplishment, for comfort, to want others to envy him and respect him, not to be a bad guy and kill innocents indiscriminately .
Jimmy and Tommy are characters worth digging into, and they could have been good too.
Jimmy embarked on a criminal path at a young age, maybe he was an orphan, and in order to survive, he had to become a ruthless beast.
Tommy doesn't allow others to say that he is not. It is likely that he was traumatized as a child and suffered bullying. He chose to use violence to protect himself.
Of course, if you want to talk about Jimmy and Tommy in detail, the length of the film may be longer than the 209 minutes of "The Irishman" . If showing a character can express the theme, then Henry is enough.
The first thing that prompted Henry's transformation was the "FBI typist incident."
At that time, he felt an infinite sense of crisis.
If his financial path is cut off, he can't do whatever he wants and has "privilege". So he was eager to "get back on track" and continued to engage in drugs despite his boss's advice.
Tommy's tragedy is the second inflection point, the protagonist group announced the disbandment, Henry basically can only do it alone.
Without teamwork, without the support of the boss, Henry was unable to support himself, and suffered another blow.
In the end, he was driven to a dead end. The first thing he wanted was drugs, and he wanted to start again.
When he realized that it was too late, he and his wife collapsed and embraced in the corner.
The beautiful gangster dream shattered to pieces.
"Everything is real."
Henry Hill, Henry's story prototype, said so about the film.
Yes, this is a real-life gangster story, which recreates the 1978 cash robbery of the Lufthansa airline building at JFK Airport in New York that shocked the world.
In reality, Henry Hill became an FBI informant from a gangster eldest brother. In order to protect himself, he chose to betray the brothers who once lived and died with him.
Henry, who was under police protection, still couldn't get off the drugs, and Hill was removed from the witness protection program after multiple drug arrests in the early 1990s. Fortunately, most of his enemies have passed away, and he has not been retaliated by, and he has lived until 2012.
No wonder Henry and Jimmy's brother game ended up being so terrifyingly real.
Henry knew that Jimmy would only look out for his own interests, and if necessary, Jimmy would still kill him mercilessly.
Sometimes sacrificing oneself to fulfill the so-called good brothers is not called loyalty, but stupidity. Never underestimate the selfishness in human nature, maybe the other party wants to kill you.
Think if you were Henry, would you be willing to save Jimmy regardless of your wife and children?
Please read "Goodfellas" before answering.
"Goodfellas" has an IMDb score of 8.7 points, making it the second most gangster movie on the Top250 list after "The Godfather" and "The Godfather 2" .
Martin Scorsese's narrative is a bit of a rundown, but the point is that his films embody human nature at its most authentic.
Greed and desire led Henry to decadence, and selfishness turned him back into a nameless boy with a life of indifference.
Once upon a time, he thought that those old and good people who worked as part-timers, squeezed the subway to and from get off work every day, and had a lot of bills, were weak and lacking courage, and they might as well die.
Who knows that he will eventually become the kind of person he hates, living stubbornly.
This is probably the greatest irony of fate.
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