Liang Longbang is a simple and honest young man. Like many people like you and me, he is huddled in a small house like dovecote, entangled in trivial matters between parents, brothers, neighbors and relatives. You don't like the person who secretly loves you, but the person you like is flickering ... Life is so helpless, too much passion can be thrown away, and too few details can be controlled. When I was young, everyone longed for the moment of free burning. In the space museum, in the great hall and in the subway station, who cares so much as long as they can be independent? The entanglement of love and desire in public places stung many people's eyes. Twenty-six middle school principals from 18 educational groups jointly complained that this unconscious film should be banned. But the lens is just a reflection of life. Not watching doesn't mean not watching. If you want to have it, you can only see it. Just like the middle-aged man with a full face of Oracle Bone Inscriptions on the double-decker tram, he was forced by his arrogance and hers and had no choice but to leave. The young Liang Longbang has a muscle cramp and his eyes exude naked desire. In the small space on the tram in the cabin, he teased Kathy with twists and turns, and the enemy advanced and I retreated, and the enemy disturbed me, tired and I fought, and the enemy retreated and chased me. ...
And Kathy, a woman like fire, no one knows her true identity. She will appear in my cousin Louis' home, shops and swimming pools, floating around like a stunning photo and disappearing without a trace. Movies in Tan Jiaming are usually dominated by women, and the same is true here. She is not beautiful, and her figure is even more lacking, but her cold and hot, wild and alienated eyes guide everything and attract both men to their aura. Maybe she is not a plant that needs to take root. As long as she is free, her desire is her root. Love if you want, don't hesitate. It's not important to love you and him. Young bodies need to burn. If you miss today, you may not have a chance to meet again tomorrow. It is better to give up thinking today and enjoy it, even if it burns to ashes after the flame.
The same is wandering, tomatoes are slightly different. A big suitcase is all she has, and she is alone in the wind and rain. Although wandering outside, as long as there is love, innocent tomatoes don't feel bitter. While cursing the boy who was infatuated with her, she pestered the man she was infatuated with, saying, "I love you, I am willing to die for you" and "I don't love you, you die". The extreme two languages alternate between the two calls, which is ridiculous and pitiful. Fortunately, the naive tomato met the equally naive Louis, and this kind boy became her home. Accompanied by the graceful sound of the piano, she cut open the real papaya with a knife, and the joy of harvest was brewing in her stomach, but the constant innocence and indifference also brought fatal disasters to her life.
Louis is a nutritious teenager. He seems to have everything. At least he has a home, though … not like a home. Dark blue walls, dark blue bedding, strong low color, as melancholy as his character. He had a father, but he never appeared, just as he never existed in this family; He had a mother, but she died two years ago, leaving him a big stack of tapes for the lonely boy to listen to repeatedly in the room; He has a stepmother, but this stepmother looks innocent and seems to have an affair with everyone, even another member of his family, his aunt. Everyone in the family has a noble aristocratic atmosphere, even his buildings are so aristocratic. Outside the spacious balcony is the sea. Standing in front of the window, you can see the endless blue and white sails on the sea. However, the relationship between people in this big house is so indifferent that everything is gloomy and desperate. It can't be Louis' real home. He likes decadent rock star David Bauer. He sniffed Japanese electric oil for excitement. He put a striking model sailboat on TV. His favorite is his father's black sailboat "Nomad", and he dreams of going to Arabia on it one day, perhaps it is the farthest place he can think of. ...
The sky is boundless and my heart is sad. Life is fleeting, but I can't be happy in my prime. It is always natural to sigh about time and life and death, but the years of youth are full of disillusionment. There is no sustenance, no restraint, no yesterday, and no tomorrow. No one told them what to do, and no one told them what the future would be. Every move is a casual choice. In a small house by the sea, under the shade of green trees, these four wandering youths came together and built a fantastic habitat. They hunt, they play, they make love, they meditate, everything is so beautiful in the soothing music melody, they don't study, they don't work, they don't eat fireworks, they don't touch the society, and they can't and don't need to study everything. In the gap between enjoying themselves, tomatoes once asked a small question: "We have no contribution to society." Louis interface replied: "what society, we are society!" " "
In the early 1980s, youth films prevailed in Hong Kong, and films depicting troubled youth emerged one after another, but none of them met each other completely and directly like "Youth in Fire". The protagonist's "problem" in the film has reached the point where there is no problem at all. No society is responsible for them, and they need not be responsible for anyone. Loss and search exist in the corner of life, rootlessness and wandering temperament penetrate into the screen and outside through seemingly ordinary laughter and abuse. Like the audience in the film, they are in Hong Kong in the early 1980s. From the individual to the home country, life experience is uncertain and the future is uncertain. No one knows where their real home is. The strong culture of neighboring Japan invaded on a large scale, and Louis could not extricate himself. Their lives are permeated with Japanese kabuki, Japanese electric oil, Japanese costumes, Japanese TV dramas, Japanese kendo, Japanese songs, Japanese language ... and even the product of Japanese social unrest-the Red Army. Accelerated the collision between life and death, the conflict between ideal and reality, the complete destruction from spirit to body, and the splashing blood wrote the most intuitive footnote for the cruelty of youth ... Of course, at the end of the film, the tomato saved Louis, eliminated the enemies in life and eliminated the spiritual threat, but such a happy reunion can't change the sense of nothingness shrouded in the whole film. Home is still far away, dreams are still out of reach, and a solitary sail is still in the vast expanse.
"Fire Youth" is the peak of the development of youth films in Hong Kong, and it is also the masterpiece of new wave films. Until 2005, it still won the China Hundred Films Award. As one of the leading figures of the new wave film, the outstanding features of director Tan Jiaming have been vividly displayed in this film: the harmonious use of music and art, the powerful image style, the story without background in the closed space, the narrative without dialogue, and the symbols such as blue, sea and island that frequently appear in most of his films, all of which are presented on the screen, just like the Wong Kar-wai films he edited many years later, which are worthy of infinite deconstruction and endless aftertaste. Youth in Fire is also the "first work" in Leslie Cheung's film career. His interpretation of "Rootless Boy Louis" has a late style of implication, restraint and tension, which won unanimous praise in the industry and was nominated for best actor in the second Hong Kong Film Awards. This is the first time in his life that he was nominated for the Best Actor Award. "Fire Youth" is about disillusionment and nothingness, but it has brought more brilliant spring to Hong Kong movies. For Leslie Cheung, a 26-year-old actor, youth has just begun.