It was pouring rain outside, and I couldn’t help but feel melancholy after watching this movie directed by Zhang Yimou. I have not read this novel. It is adapted from the novel of the same name. It is said that there are big differences. But I fully accepted the content of the movie, and it had a pretty good ending.
Main characters: Xu Fugui, Xu Fugui’s wife Jiazhen, son Xu Youqing, daughter Xu Fengxia, good brothers forever, son-in-law Wan Erxi, grandson Steamed Bun.
Xu Fugui was originally a high-ranking young master. He had an old house at home, a four-year-old daughter, and a pregnant wife. But he got obsessed with gambling and lost all his family's money. The old man was furious with him after signing the house transfer contract, and his wife left home in despair because of his gambling addiction. Suddenly, he became rich and only had an old mother to support, and life seemed bleak.
Later, when Jiazhen heard that Fugui had quit gambling, she took her son and daughter back to Fugui. She didn’t dislike the dilapidated house they lived in. The family was reunited, but their lives were difficult. Fugui wanted to ask Long Er, who had won his house, to borrow money to open a shop. Long Er did not lend him money directly, but lent him a box of shadow puppets so that he could make money on his own. So Fugui began to perform shadow puppets for people in the streets. Unfortunately, he encountered a civil war. Fugui and Changchun were forced to join the army and could not return to his wife, children and mother.
Fugui has been carrying the box of shadow puppets on his back. The battlefield was littered with corpses. It was too cold so they would pick cotton-padded clothes from the dead and wear them. Fugui thought that he must go back alive. It was too hard for Jiazhen to be alone. They woke up that night and saw that the whole camp was full of corpses. They were frightened, ran away from the dead, and met the Communist Party. They performed shadow puppets for the Communist Party, but were lucky enough to survive.
Later, Fugui returned home and Changchun went to drive with the army. Fugui saw his daughter again, only to find that she was half-deaf and mute. When he asked Jiazhen, he learned that Fengxia had suffered a severe fever and had escaped from hell. The rich old mother has passed away, and Jiazhen is raising two children by herself. The government arranged for Jiazhen to deliver hot water, which can earn some money, but she has to get up early every day, and the two children have never slept well. Everyone was in tears at the reunion.
Shortly after Fugui came back, Long Er was judged to be a landlord because he won the house from Fugui. Because he was unwilling to hand over the house, he burned it directly. He was considered a counter-revolutionary and was sentenced to death. Shot five times on the street. Fugui was so frightened that he peed his pants, as if it had hit him. I'm still glad I lost that house, otherwise he would be the one who deserved it.
Their family of four followed the party, smelting iron, eating from a big pot, and lived a peaceful life that was enviable to others. But the nightmare soon came. Because of the endless exercise and work, both Youqing and Fengxia were tired and fell asleep. That day Youqing was taken to school by Fugui to make iron. He fell asleep because he was trapped behind a wall. The district chief drove over the wall and the child was crushed to death on the spot.
That district chief is Changchun.
Fugui and Jiazhen were immersed in the pain of losing their son. Fugui did not even think about the friendship they had when they crawled out of the dead together, and regarded him as the murderer of his son. What Changchun gave him They want nothing.
A few years later, the couple finally came out of those gloomy days. Their daughter Fengxia was also in her twenties, a slim and graceful person, and they were busy arranging marriage arrangements for her. That day, the mayor introduced a worker, Wan Erxi, to Fengxia. He came from a good family, was a small foreman, and had a good character. However, he was a bit shabby due to a work injury before. Fengxia, who was half-deaf and half-mute, was a perfect match for the two of them. The family members met and agreed, and the marriage was quickly finalized.
Fengxia was about to become pregnant. During the Cultural Revolution, a group of people were being criticized and all the good and bad were arrested. The old doctors at the hospital were all taken to the cowshed and deprived of food for three days. There were only a group of female students wearing red cuffs watching in the hospital. Fengxia was about to give birth in front of them. Jiazhen was afraid that something would go wrong if her daughter could not speak out, so she asked Erxi to find a way to bring a gynecology professor out from the cowshed to help watch. Fugui saw that the professor was very weak and thought he was hungry, so he ran out and bought him seven steamed buns and asked him to eat them slowly.
Suddenly, a baby cry was heard. Fengxia gave birth to a fat boy weighing 7 pounds and 20 pounds. The nurse reported that mother and child were safe. The whole family was immersed in joy. Suddenly, a nurse in the delivery room shouted, "The mother is bleeding heavily." Jiazhen was frightened and rushed in. The blood flowed out uncontrollably, Fengxia's face turned pale in pain, Fugui Erxi panicked, and then they remembered that the professor was outside.
Unexpectedly, the professor ate all seven steamed buns in one go and choked, so they fed him water. The result was even worse, because the steamed buns would absorb water and become larger and stretched out. Just like that, Fengxia left.
Jiazhen named Fengxia's son "Steamed Bun", which means that the Lord of Hell will not accept the lives of people with these names. Only Jiazhen Fugui Erxi and Steamed Buns are left. Although Jiazhen is bedridden, she is also very happy. The video ends here.
This movie mainly talks about the ups and downs of a wealthy man's life, from a wealthy young man who was addicted to gambling to a poor common man who began to take care of his family and cherish the good life in front of him. But something unexpected happened, and no one expected that Youqing died in school and Fengxia died in childbirth. Fortunately, the ending is quite satisfactory.
It is said that in the original novel, Youqing was blood-drawn to death because he saved Changchun’s wife, Fengxia died of dystocia, Jiazhen also died of illness because her son and daughter both passed away, and Erxi had an accident at a construction site He died, and the steamed bun choked to death because of a pot of beans... In the end, only Fugui was left. He bought a cow and named it "Fugui". They lived together with one cow and one cow. There was always ten dollars under his pillow. It was reserved for the kindhearted people who helped bury him. . The original novel is very depressing and reveals the difficulty of living.
You still have to cherish your life.