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author: wood blade‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍

editor: lan er‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍

layout: wang wei

as southeast asia increasingly becomes a narrative soil for domestic films to test scale and pursue commercial wonders, a thai film without suspenseful plots and exaggerated reversals gives the audience a gentle yet powerful shock.

grandma's grandsonthe title may bethe feeling of a tear-jerking family drama,the plot, however, is deeply immersed in the details of life. it does not over-present suffering, nor does it sing hymns of emotion. it is simple, restrained, and delicate, and it slowly leads the audience step by step through a story that almost everyone will experience, straight to the bottom of their hearts.

behind the warmth lies cruelty. inheritance division, preference for sons over daughters, intergenerational harm, these undercurrents in east asian family culture, also flow along the river in the movie, whitewashing a peaceful and unharmonious scene, and to some extent, causing sensitive controversy among the audience.

whether it is warm or ugly, the film itself that boldly brings those spicy topics to the screen is still peaceful, not preachy, and does not force values. perhaps for a realistic film, recording, presenting, and inducing people to see their own lives outside the film is its greatest value.

"true gold calls forth true love" is written on the movie poster, clearly indicating that the "love" between grandparents and grandchildren, which is often touching in other stories, is mixed with the word "profit" this time.

selfish desires are wrapped in the shell of filial piety, and any action of the younger generation can be tied up under the banner of family affection and love. this movie shows this honestly and unabashedly.

during the qingming festival, when worshipping ancestors, grandma fell down and was accidentally diagnosed with advanced cancer in the hospital. she only had one year to live. at this time, the protagonist an learned that after his death, his grandfather did not leave his inheritance to his children, but to his granddaughter who had taken care of him during his lifetime. he had a perverse idea.

the grandmother is from chaozhou, china, and has three children. an is a chinese grandson, a native thai. but so what, success can be replicated. the unemployed an is a game anchor. in his eyes, completing tasks will get rewards, and the dying grandmother is just an npc.

the cleverness of the movie lies in the fact that ann's grandmother is not the kind, slow-paced, peaceful, and careless person in the traditional concept. she knew ann's intentions from the beginning.

when an came to take care of his grandmother for the first time, he was rudely kicked out of the house by his grandmother because he was careless and bought the wrong fried fish that his grandmother wanted to eat.

love and profit became the key to the plot in the early stage of the film. when the grandmother saved money, she didn't let her grandson get close to her to avoid leaking her information. the grandson used a microwave to heat the money instead of boiling water just to save trouble. the grandmother hid the cash deep in the snack cabinet. the grandson used shoes to queue up at the hospital... the director spent more than three years writing the script, and incorporated a lot of chinese elements and vivid details of chinese culture in this part, allowing the audience to fall into another parallel world similar to themselves while watching.

it is these seemingly slow but actually crucial daily routines that allow the grandson and grandmother to complete a stable two-way journey: the impatient and hasty grandson gradually becomes steady and reliable; the grandmother, who was originally wary of the grandson's "intrusion", also opens up step by step.

it is inevitable to seek profit, but it is impossible to say that he is ruthless. people are all made of flesh and blood. apart from the ties of blood, true love sprouts in the habit of such daily interactions, just like the pomegranate tree in front of grandma's door. when the audience gradually recognizes the grandson like the grandma, the question of "you are also sowing seeds, hoping to reap them in the future, right?" becomes so thrilling.

but she is sharp and patient. when she found out that her grandson, who thought he was sure to inherit the inheritance, had put her house up for sale online, she didn't expose the truth but kept it to herself.

regarding this treatment, the actress who plays the grandmother said in an interview that no matter what happens, the grandmother's heart will not change. this kind of inexplicable and unreasonable cover-up and compromise is the most real preference between relatives.‍

it is not until halfway through the movie that the audience realizes that in "grandma's grandson", the grandson only provides a perspective, allowing the audience to see the grandmother who is the real protagonist.

this is a grandmother who has broken away from the inherent identity label and is portrayed as a living person with flesh and blood.

she was steadfast. she got up at 4 a.m. every day to sell porridge, and she did it for decades, rain or shine, just to raise her three children. she was self-sacrificing. she loved beef the most, but in order to help her eldest son recover from his illness, she started to pray to buddha and became a vegetarian. she was stubborn. even though the shoes her eldest son bought her didn't fit her feet, she insisted on wearing them for many years.

she was naturally lonely. every sunday, she would put on her best clothes and sit at the door waiting for her family to come to the regular gathering - although this gathering became more and more formal, it was just a formality. she once confided in her grandson that she was most afraid of the day when the spring festival ended. when we thought she was going to say that she was lonely and missed her family, she said, "there are so many leftovers in the refrigerator, how can i finish them all by myself."

this is a powerful line that is worth pondering. it is a simple sentence that is lonely, simple, and has everything. it even indirectly points to the truth of why grandma got cancer. what killed her was not the cancer, but the time and love that kept passing like an hourglass.

she was afraid of death. during the day, she seemed to accept her fate calmly, telling people around her that she was in charge of her own body; but at night, when nightmares and pain came together, she muttered, "mom and dad, come pick me up, i'm scared... grandpa and grandma, where are you, i want to die..."

yes, grandma was not born a grandma. she also had parents and elders who loved her, and friends who cheered her on, although her friend died earlier than her because she gave up chemotherapy for cancer. she loved playing cards, and she would unbutton the hem of her clothes to show her sexiness. in fact, she was reluctant to give up her current life and did not dare to say goodbye to her relatives.

there is a tear-jerking moment in the movie, when the grandmother is dying, her grandson who has learned the minnan dialect gently caresses her and sings her a lullaby "唪金公". a chaoshan audience said that this is the first song that all chaoshan people hear after they are born.

it is these kinds of collections of real life that superimpose the image of the grandmother in every audience member's every move. she is so concrete that any comment of "deceiving tears" seems inappropriate.

the universal reflections of some works can break through regional limitations, but some films, precisely because they hit certain specific pain points, have achieved a directional resonance. although "grandma's grandson" is a thai film, it has a strong chinese flavor and hides the "traditional bad habits" that the chinese people are well aware of.

from the first family gathering, we can see that after eating, the children all said they had something to do and had to leave. almost no one was willing to stay and play cards with their grandmother who had cancer. the family seemed to be cohesive, but in fact they were apart.

the movie is calm, but it also spends a lot of space to reveal the loss of people's hearts behind the warmth.

the eldest son, the one my grandmother was most proud of, was an expert in stock trading, had a good income and a happy family, but he only paid lip service to filial piety, as if he was doing it for show. when the eldest son and his family took my grandmother to the temple, all the wishes were for themselves, except for my grandmother's wish for the health of the whole family, and the wish was so long that it could hardly be written down.

the youngest son, who was unemployed and addicted to gambling, would only visit his grandmother when he was short of money. he would act like a spoiled child and look for snacks while taking away her savings. to this, his grandmother simply said, "i hope he doesn't come often, that would mean he is doing well."

the movie starts with a scene of visiting graves during the qingming festival. the whole family is absent-minded, except for the daughter (an's mother) who helps her grandmother. even when her grandmother breaks a bone, only the daughter accompanies her to the hospital. when she was young, the daughter felt sorry for her grandmother's hard work and resolutely dropped out of school to help her sell porridge. after getting married, in order to accompany her grandmother for chemotherapy during the day, she changed to the night shift and worked non-stop with almost no sleep time.

in east asian families, the absence of men and the dedication of women are presented calmly and ironically on the screen. self-sacrificing love is passed down from generation to generation among women, and the daughter just said lightly, "it is always more reassuring to give than to receive."

the love passed down from generation to generation is also mixed with hurt.

there is a breathtaking scene in the movie. in order to buy a good feng shui grave for herself, grandma finally decided to meet her brother. the brother's family lived in a mansion, which was very different from grandma's own old and shabby house. in the last second, the brother and sister who had not seen each other for a long time were still snuggling together and singing. in the next second, the camera turned and the brother decisively rejected his sister's request for money in the room.

grandma felt very aggrieved: "before my parents died, i took care of them wholeheartedly. in the end, why did you get all the house and inheritance, and i got nothing?"

but my brother was unmoved and scolded grandma, saying that she was a "foreigner" and "we are not a family because we have different surnames" and asked her to never come to see him.

what is really disturbing is that this subconscious is deeply rooted in the blood. because the grandmother, who was the victim, actually rejected "outsiders" and never regarded the eldest son's wife as her own family, which always caused dissatisfaction from the eldest son; what is even more chilling is that when it came to the stage of dividing the inheritance, the grandson took care of it wholeheartedly and the daughter devoted herself to it, but still failed to change the grandmother's mind: the house was left to the second son.

"the son inherited the house, but the daughter can only inherit cancer." the daughter's gentle words revealed the truth. although the grandmother felt guilty, she could only say, "but i still want you to be by my side the most."

this plot trend is not easy for female audiences to watch. the film's early stage is delicately laid out, immersing the audience, but then it tells them the result, which has caused some harm to female audiences. there is no shortage of female audiences criticizing the film's creators online, saying that they deliberately show the weakness of female characters, and acquiesce to and condone the bad habit of favoring boys over girls.

it is human nature to feel sorry for the misfortune and angry at the lack of resistance, but it seems a bit far-fetched to ask the characters in the movie to rise up and resist. with the advancement of the wave of thought, we may be accustomed to thinking and criticizing morality, hoping that everyone will wake up and grow from injustice. but this wave is advancing slowly and firmly. at present, it may not cover an ordinary middle-aged woman who walked out of an ordinary town in east asia.

it should be noted that, under the accumulation of various views, there are so many east asian women who spend their entire lives focusing on their families and giving without compensation. it is somewhat inappropriate to blame the anger on an old man, a middle-aged woman in the movie. it must be admitted that being able to present this point without judging moral values ​​is actually a good thing for the creators. because when the problem is seen, efforts are made to find a solution to it.

from another perspective, in the grandmother's final decision, the eldest son did not get a penny, but the grandson got the grandmother's savings because of the promise made when he was young. perhaps in the grandmother's mind, the eldest son has a successful career and does not need to be taken care of; giving money to the grandson is also a legacy to her daughter; the only thing that makes her worry is the second son, because she is old and she only has the house to help him.

grandma is also a mother, and she loves her son dearly. even if she dotes on him or shows partiality to him, it is just her nature. this kind of inequality is perhaps the most chilling insight into the reality of human nature in the movie.

but in fact, the grandson's final choice concealed the value expression of the creator. an, who came to take care of his grandmother for money, rejected the cash rewards from his uncles twice. in order to fulfill his promise, he took out all the money that his grandmother had saved for him and bought her a good cemetery.

at this moment, the conflict between love and profit completely gave way to family affection. as a male beneficiary, he freely and firmly withdrew from this maze of interests. although such a young man's decision could not break the fate cycle of east asian families, at least he took a positive step. more positive steps require the audience outside the movie to take them together.