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Source: Chen Luyu's movie sofa (lyyy_scndgs)

The core of comedy is tragedy, and this statement is most appropriate to describe the hit movie "Catching Dolls".

The whole film is full of laughs, and you can hear laughter almost every few minutes during the viewing process. Shen Teng and Ma Li have great control over comedy performances, and no matter what they say or do, it is always interesting and hilarious.

But as I watched the second half, I gradually discovered that this smile contained countless flying knives, leaving people nowhere to escape.

⚠️ Friendly reminder: This article contains spoilers

01

It started with comedy, but it’s more than just comedy

"Catching Dolls" is the third feature-length comedy film by directors Yan Fei and Peng Damo after the films "Charlotte's Troubles" and "The Richest Man in Xihong City". It is also a sincere work that marks the tenth anniversary of the establishment of Xihong City IP and the collaboration between Shen Teng and Ma Li. The creative team used many details to link this film with "Charlotte's Troubles" and "The Richest Man in Xihong City" to construct a Xihong City universe.

You can see many familiar elements in the film, such as Qiuya Road, Xihong No. 7 Middle School, Xia Luo and Ma Dongmei’s school uniforms, big hotels, hospitals, Wang Duoyu Football Field, etc. These elements make you willing to believe in the existence of Xihong City and even feel that you have become a member of this city.

In this city, you have witnessed Charlotte's overnight fame and heard about Wang Duoyu's overnight wealth. This time, you will watch how a wealthy couple educates their children in a reverse way.

Ma Chenggang (Shen Teng), an entrepreneur in Xihong City, believes that he has achieved success because he suffered a lot when he was young, which enabled him to work hard and become a superior person. In his opinion, the reason why his eldest son Ma Dajun (Zhang Zidong) failed to become a person like him is that he grew up to be a "waste" because he had been living a life of luxury and did not suffer hardships.

After failing to practice the tuba, he placed all his hopes on his youngest son Ma Jiye (played by Shi Pengyuan and Xiao Bochen). He decided to give his son a poor upbringing, and moved out of the mansion with his wife Chunlan (played by Ma Li) and moved into a dilapidated compound with the infant Ma. He spent a lot of money to hire talents from various industries, developed a strict elite growth education plan, hired people to play the role of neighbors, and built a "misery utopia" for his son.

In Xiao Ma's understanding, his family is extremely poor.

The house is old and the roof is leaking.

Grandma (played by Sarina) is paralyzed in bed and has been taking medicine for many years, but even though she is sick, she never forgets to teach him.

His father worked to earn money and lived frugally. Even though his old pair of shoes were already torn apart, he still told him with a smile: "It's okay, you can still wear them for a few more years."

Xiao Ma's school was five kilometers away from home. Other children went to school by car or bicycle, but he only had a pair of shoes as a means of transportation and ran to school every day.

While other kids were holding tablets and cutting fruits in games, he was holding a wooden stick and cutting the air in the yard.

But even though his family was so poor, Xiao Ma's learning journey was never hindered, and he even had divine help -

Whenever he met foreigners on the road and asked for directions, they would always ask him questions in standard English, and coincidentally, every question came from the English texts he had learned.

When I went to a bookstore to borrow comics, the owner would hold a copy of How the Steel Was Tempered and keep pointing out to me: What a good book, what a good book!

The aunties who were washing clothes in the yard would loudly discuss the mechanics of the washboard when he passed by.

The old man practicing calligraphy at the stairs would write and recite ancient poems as he went upstairs.

Every night before going to bed, the piano music of the uncle next door would sound on time, and I would fall asleep to the company of the master's famous music every night.

When going to the market to buy vegetables, the vendors never tell you the price directly. They always like to throw math problems and ask him to calculate how much the vegetables cost himself.

In Xiao Ma's view, it seemed as if someone was guiding him to become a good boy with good character and good academic performance, and any deviation would be corrected immediately.

He didn't know that he was living in a false world created by his parents.

But the audience knows.

The film's humor comes precisely from this God's perspective. The audience, who already know the truth, sits in front of the screen and watches how Ma Chenggang, Chunlan and others act in front of their son, how they cover up their secrets, and how they resolve the crisis of lies.

"Catching Dolls" uses this information gap to create jokes. There are constant gags throughout the film, and the characters in the play engage in an endless stream of absurd and bizarre behaviors, coupled with the actors' smooth performances, which ultimately achieves a highly effective comedic effect.

But the film begins with a comedy, but it is more than just a comedy. When you take off the comedy shell, the underlying tone of "Catching Dolls" is undoubtedly serious and cruel.

It makes many people realize that such miserable education may only bring misery to children in the end, not necessarily education.

02

Ma Chenggang-style parenting, parents’ road to steelmaking

As mentioned earlier, when Ma Jiye went to a bookstore to borrow comics, the owner would deliberately hold up a copy of How the Steel Was Tempered to guide him on what kind of books he should read.

The title of this book also coincides with Ma Chenggang's parenting journey.

In order to prevent his son from falling in love too early, he used his connections to send his son's friend of the opposite sex who grew up with him to a dance academy.

In order to prevent his son from pursuing athletics, he secretly applied anesthetic on his son's feet, then went to a fake hospital to find a fake doctor to make a fake conclusion, telling Ma Jiye: You will never be able to become a professional athlete in this life.

In order to make up for his regret of not being admitted to Peking University or Tsinghua University, he used various scenarios to plant passwords and subtly brainwash his son: being admitted to Peking University or Tsinghua University is the only right answer in your life.

Watching the process of Ma Chenggang training Ma Jiye feels like he is making steel. He first invests his son as raw material, then hires various experts to process it, removes all harmful elements, and finally pours it into the designed mold and rolls it into the shape he wants.

He didn't seem to care so much about whether his son was round or square, or what he was suitable for. He seemed to just want his son to become the piece of steel he imagined.

Parents like Ma Chenggang are everywhere in life.

They will instill in their children over and over again that only by getting into college can there be a future in life.

They will tell their children over and over again how difficult it is to raise you.

They will emphasize to their children over and over again: I am doing this for your own good.

They will discipline your behavior, interfere with your friendships, influence your wishes, and erase your hobbies.

They don't care who you want to be, they only ask you to be who they want you to be.

When you experience all this from Ma Jiye's perspective, you feel suffocated.

The most cruel moment in the film is when Ma Jiye walks into his parents' secret base and sees the photos of the various subject working groups hanging on the wall.

It turned out that the foreigner who asked him for directions was a foreign teacher hired by his father.

It turned out that the bookstore owner, the aunt who did laundry, the uncle who practiced calligraphy and read poetry, the neighbor uncle who played the piano, and the vegetable vendor were all professional teachers arranged by my father.

It turns out that the grandmother who had been closest to him since childhood was also the education expert hired specially for him by his father.

It turned out that I was just an "experimental subject" in my father's education plan.

When he faced his biological parents, he smiled and asked calmly: "Who are you two teachers? I don't see you two on the wall."

As a viewer, it is probably difficult to laugh at this moment. I just feel my hair standing on end and my heart is completely torn apart.

You feel sorry for Ma Jiye - what if he finds out the truth? You can't start over again after you've lost your life.

You also feel sad for Ma Chenggang and Chunlan - what good intentions do they have? They racked their brains to help their children fly higher and go further, but in the end they pushed their children to a distance from which they could never return.

03

Don't copy each other's answers, just do your own exam in life

Ma Chenggang has spent most of his life educating his children. He hopes that Ma Jiye can be as successful as himself, and that his children can have good qualities and a broader life.

In order to cultivate his child's interest in reading, he joined forces with his wife Chunlan and grandmother to accompany Ma Jiye to read books every night - although they knew that he was "performing" in front of his son, how many parents are really willing to spend a lot of time acting to this extent for their children.

In order to cultivate his son's financial management ability, he took out more than one thousand yuan as a birthday gift on Ma Jiye's birthday and told his son that this was all the family's property and that he would be in charge from today on.

In order to instill in his son a correct view of money and teach him a lesson for his reckless "squandering" just to play games, he asked someone to secretly damage the tablet computer that Ma Jiye had originally planned to return without reason after playing with it for only a few days. Ultimately, the tablet could not be returned, and Ma Jiye was so anxious that he picked up bottles on the street and sold them for money to make up for the loss, and tasted the "price of getting something for free."

When Ma Jiye closed the unattended cash box and withstood the "test of humanity", Ma Chenggang in front of the monitor breathed a sigh of relief and was more excited than anyone else.

He wanted so badly to play the role of a father.

He wanted so badly to educate his children well.

Can you say he doesn't love his children?

Of course not.

There is no doubt that Ma Chenggang loves his children.

Unfortunately, he used the wrong method.

He completely ignored the fact that the child is an independent individual who is different from him.

He thought that the educational method that worked for himself was also applicable to his children and could cultivate a successful person like himself, but he ignored the fact that such an educational method might also destroy the child's talents and happiness and stifle a freer and richer soul.

Ma Chenggang's love is too one-sided, and oftentimes it seems more like a kind of self-touching.

There is an important symbol that appears repeatedly in the movie "Catching Dolls", which is the pigeon.

It became a totem connecting the real world and the unreal world, carrying the high hopes of Ma Chenggang, Chunlan and others, and also inspiring Ma Jiye's awakening.

The world that Ma Chenggang spent a lot of money to build for his son embodies his expectations and love, but this expectation and love have transformed into a kind of control, like a giant pigeon cage, feeding Ma Jiye. The father issued instructions day after day, trying to tame his son, and as long as the whistle sounded, he would fly to the direction he specified.

During this process, although everyone who participated in the training of Ma Jiye had felt distressed, blamed themselves, and struggled, in the end, the desire to see their son become successful overwhelmed everything.

And Ma Jiye, because he saw the pigeon pattern under the swimming pool, his childhood memories were suddenly awakened, so he decided to take a gamble, betting his own future, to find out the truth.

When he found out that he had been deceived, he left resolutely, wanting to get rid of his father's control and go to a real place.

Ma Chenggang was puzzled.

——Are you still feeling wronged? The whole world revolves around you, what are you dissatisfied with?

——The road I have paved for you, once you step on it, you will reach the summit!

——You think I control your life? You control our lives too!

At this moment, in this battle between father and son, there are no survivors.

Through the form of comedy, the movie cleverly brings an ironic and somewhat heavy life lesson to the public. Those who grew up under East Asian education, those parents like Ma Chenggang, and those children who have experienced poverty and guilt education may put themselves in the movie countless times while watching it.

How to educate a child is a compulsory course for parents.

The probability of raising an ideal child is probably similar to catching dolls - you aim at the one you want among a pile of dolls, some people may catch it in one go, while others may invest a lot of time and money and still get nothing.

There is no standard tutorial on how to catch the doll.

There is no standard answer to how parents should educate their children.

But at least we should all reach a consensus: everyone is an independent individual and has the right to make his or her own choices.

Stop using the life you have designed as a template for the next generation.

Just like what is sung in the ending song of the movie: People living under the same roof, don’t copy each other’s answers, just do your own paper in life.

- Luyu Film Group ✖️ "Catching Dolls" -