Hello, Zhihua

? "Hello, Hana" is the second love letter written by Iwai Shunji. The difference from the first love letter is that the first love letter was written by Iwai Shunji for love. And "Hello, Zhihua" was written by Shunji Iwai for the years.

In 1995, the writer Iwai Shunji used a novel called "Love Letter" to show us what love should be like, implicit and beautiful, sentimental but not sad. That is the look of youth and love. In the same year, Shunji Iwai adapted "Love Letter" into a movie of the same name, which affected the entire Southeast Asia, Europe and the United States.

? More than twenty years later, Iwai Shunji set sail again with a love letter. In this love letter, it is clear that Shunji Iwai wants to tell us more, not only about adolescent love, but also about middle-aged marriage, twilight love, domestic violence, life and death, and ideals. Shunji Iwai wrote these into love letters, allowing the audience to travel between the present and the past again and again.

? The movie exudes small blessings everywhere, even quarrels, suicide, lovelorn, these tragic plots, Iwai Shunji still handles them with a warm tone. When the husband misunderstood that his wife Zhihua was in contact with his sister Zhinan's male classmate, he smashed Zhihua's mobile phone. And the next day, a "simple mobile phone" was delivered, which was a kind of care and romance that belonged to science and engineering, and the contradictions were diluted in every detail of life. Even if it tastes like candy with glass shards in it, it will make people smile. Different from ordinary film and television directors who deliberately create conflicts without logic, Shunji Iwai tries to explain all the contradictions in a light lens language. This is the first time I’ve seen Shunji Iwai’s lens language. I had only read the novel “Love Letter” before. This type of lens, which is similar to the abstinence system, makes people have infinite reveries. It is infinitely better than the straightforward language of the lens.

When I first learned from the movie information that the director and screenwriter of "Hello, Hana" was Shunji Iwai, I was more or less worried because it was not a movie in a pure sense. is a Japanese work, because it tells a story that happened in China, not to mention, starring all domestic actors, then will it be as acclimatized as the domestically remade works after buying Japanese copyrights in recent years, and eventually become a dissatisfaction? What a joke. Or to accommodate domestic audiences and censorship. It became a matter of flattery. However, when I walked into this movie, I found that besides having a different style from domestic directors, Shunji Iwajin once made me forget that this was a work by a Japanese director and screenwriter, until the heroine Zhihua sent a letter to her mother-in-law. When I was a grandfather, a few words from the grandfather in an understatement

"I was a college English teacher before I retired, and your mother-in-law was my student. Unexpectedly, the last time we met by chance, your mother-in-law said, I want to take my class again and learn English well. You are so old, what’s the point of learning?”

Fortunately, I was the only one in the auditorium at that time, and I couldn’t stand my seat. He jumped up and stamped his feet and said, "It's not taboo, it's not Japanese." In terms of the level of taboos, who can compare with Japan? The theme of teacher-student love is common in Japanese movies and TV dramas, but it is more of a comic style similar to idol dramas. And it is presented like this with a very life-like feeling. This is the first time I have encountered a love letter connecting three generations of stories about youthful love. As an outsider, I have been looking forward to Iwai Shunji being willing to give more shots to his mother-in-law while watching the movie. I believe that the story of the mother-in-law is not inferior to the hero and heroine. However, the stingy Iwai Shunji did not show up until the end of the film. Everything clicked just like that, everything was just right. Any more or less will make people feel slightly frivolous. When my mother-in-law reunited in her later years, there were no gorgeous words, but only joy. I still remember a scene where my mother-in-law was flipping through an English dictionary under the lamp to learn English after suffering from acute lumbar disc herniation.

At that moment I remembered the smell of tea. The tea flavor is always bright at first. The richness of Pu'er, the fragrance of Tieguanyin, and the sweetness of tangerine.

But when we drank one cup after another, the taste gradually became lighter and weaker. None of the things that had happened in life were not spectacular when they happened. In the end, they were slowly diluted by the years. But we will drink this tea inadvertently, as if relying on the taste of strong tea in our memory, we drink these cups of tea. I believe that everyone will recall the passion of their youth in the dead of night, but during the day they will live their lives as if nothing happened. While watching the movie, a sentence from Shunji Iwai's "Love Letter" kept echoing in my mind.

? Having someone you can miss is happiness.

When Yinchuan, the heroine Zhihua’s crush in junior high school (sister’s suitor), appeared in front of Zhihua based on a letter sent to him. Zhihua was surprised at first, then panicked as he closed the door, looked for lipstick, and put on lipstick. Zhou Xun's performance was done in one go. In fact, when people reach middle age, the memories or goodbyes of first love and secret love can easily turn into spiritual infidelity, but Shunji Iwai uses lipstick to deal with it, which looks like a stream of consciousness. This is not the first time I have seen lipstick in Japanese movies and TV dramas.

The first time was when Michiko, a married woman who is good at cheating, met the heroine, the housewife Orisa, in the supermarket for the first time in the Japanese TV series "Hirugao". Orisa was in the supermarket. To steal lipstick, Michiko was surprised to find the same kind of lipstick. Even though the heroine was still a submissive housewife at the time, although there is no clear psychological explanation of what the lipstick implies, people still like to assign meaning to the lipstick. Thirty years later, when Yin Chuan appears, Zhihua's lipstick seems to be a response to that secret love that has no beginning and no end. I think it is also an affirmation of youth.

? At the end of the film, Yin Chuan’s letter to Zhi Hua, Zhi Hua’s sister Zhi Nan’s suicide note, the last chapter of Yin Chuan’s book "Zhi Nan" and the class reunion thirty years later at the beginning of the film recording on. Write this love letter to youth from beginning to end. The content of Shunji Iwai's love letter to time is presented in different ways with different characters.

? "I believe that for everyone, the middle school years will be unforgettable and irreplaceable memories. If you ask me about my future dreams and goals, I can't be very specific. But I think this is good, so that our future will be unlimited, and our life choices may be rich and colorful. Each of us will walk on our own unique life path in the past, present and future, and maybe some of us can realize our dreams. , maybe when life is difficult and painful for some people, at such times, I believe we will think of this place, this place where our lives have infinite possibilities."

2018, 11, 11

Nanming