Serena Li '27
Edited by Rudy Chau '28
Has it been a while since you have watched a movie that feels like a documentary, with true emotions and no particular embellishment? In director Baizhiqiang’s “Like Father and Son”, there are no movie stars, no people you recognize, with no conventional entertaining plot for you to eat up. However, the film touches your soul with its raw sincerity and genuine expression of true emotions. Not to mention, it gives representation to the left-behind children and parents who have lost their only child, groups which are common in this Chinese countryside context.
This is a typical example of a road movie. A man and a boy, with the similar experience of losing those dear to them. Both brought together by coincidence, they slowly grow fond of each other while changing each other for the better, and eventually ending up in a “father-son” relationship. For this genre of movie, motives (and perhaps coincidences in this case) that bring the protagonists together are quite important and usually the center of the plot, which is done quite smoothly in this movie. At the start of the plot, the audience learns of a boy named Maodou who lives in Qingjian (a rural area) with his grandmother with minimal money to survive. Some neighborhood kids pick on Maodou despite his family conditions, leaving him feeling isolated. Maodou misses his father quite a lot and expects to see his father soon when he “comes back from making money in the big city”, as Maodou’s grandmother tells him. However, this never happens as his grandmother dies one day, and he is on his own.
Gouren, a peddler selling day-to-day items in the back of the truck from village to village, is looking for the man who stole the money intended for live-saving medication for his son. Coincidentally, he happens to be in the village the day after Maodou’s grandmother’s funeral. After which, the story between them unfolds in the back of Gouren’s truck. Gouren suddenly notices that something is burning in his truck, which is Maodou climbing into the compartment inside the truck and accidentally lighting all the firecrackers. Gouren learns that Maodou actually wants to go with him to Shenmu to find his father and accompanies him on that journey to find his father to make him pay for the damages.
Throughout this journey, Gouren is angry as his only son has just died, and this loss of things to sell only adds on to that anger. Not to mention, as Maodou is a stubborn child, he takes out his anger on him. However, after days of accompanying him during their trip, Gouren’s viewpoints and feelings toward Maodou to each other starts to change.
“Like Father and Son” is a movie with an open ending, during which we hope that Gouren will stop the truck and bring Maodou with him, but it’s possible that the truck will not stop. However, this is not important anymore, as they have already changed each other for the better. Maodou knows that he has been loved, now, and Gouren knows that he still can be loved and give out love to somebody else.
Throughout my viewing of this movie, I was reminded of the movie “Kikujiro”. They are both road movies, both showing a plot of goal-chasing throughout their respective movies (with Kikujiro depicting a girl rescuing her parents from the land of spirits). So, why can’t “Like Father and Son” have the same ending as “Kikujiro”: happy, peaceful, and unweighted? I believe the reason behind this is quite simple…
In the poverty-stricken north-western regions of China, disaster and misery are carved deep into the bones of the people, passing on with each generation. If a realistic movie that reflects the current situation of the people in that region was to be shot, it would be impossible to portray poverty as something joyful and lighthearted.
Another point of praise for this movie is its vivid, whole characterization and plot which adheres to common logic. For example, Gouren’s character is not unrealistically nice. He is not depicted as one who would adopt children once finding out they need help, but rather as someone
who went quite hard on mischievous Maodou. This is since his values, sculpted by a hard life, were then completely based on surviving and making money.
As for Maodou, we come to love his character due to his possession of many admirable qualities. He promises to make up for the damage that he has caused as opposed to evading responsibility. In addition, he is kind to a girl who he deems to be leading an even harsher life than him by giving her support in money immediately.
Now, with such wholesome characters as a basis, the actors’ performances have to be recognized as well. Although the actors found were not any familiar faces from Hollywood or the entertainment industry, their acting was still exquisite. In one of the scenes, where Maodou was hit for playing with the rattle-drum and shows the camera his blurry-eyed look with tears just almost falling out, we can practically stand in his shoes, feeling how sorry he feels for doing something wrong mixed with a bit of stubbornness for doing it under the context of not knowing, yet still getting struck.
There are many details hidden in the plot as well, proving to the audience that this is a testament to the director’s 500 days of screenwriting. At the start of the movie, we see a couple of neighborhood children bullying Maodou for not having firecrackers to play with, symbolizing the absence of a fatherly figure in Maodou’s life. In the end, however, this is resolved as Gouren puts on a personal firework show for Maodou, meaning that the missing position for a fatherly figure in Maodou’s life is finally filled by Gouren.
Another example of this is the rattle-drum. Since this toy symbolizes Gouren’s thought and mourning for his dead son, when Maodou first plays with it, Gouren strikes him. Later still, when Maodou was being mischievous and accidently makes a hole in the rattle-drum with his finger,
the audience expects Gouren to do something to him again, and anticipates that throughout a long period of time, until we see near the end that the rattle-drum is patched. In my understanding, Maodou poking his finger through the symbol of Gouren’s mourning for his son (the rattle-
drum) symbolizes Gouren opening up to Maodou.
Some great movies attain their greatness by showing raw, human personalities that resonate with us. We feel as if Gouren and Maodou are people we see every day on the streets in the suburbs and countryside. Their misfortune intrigues us to look more closely and pay more attentionto the left-behind children community with over sixty million peoples, those parents who have lost their only child, and migration workers in China. That is the basic reason behind why “Like Father and Son” is a very special and meaningful movie.
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