The Temptation of Pain

The Temptation of Pain

This article was written on September 7, 2013

Author: Lü Jianfeng

In the movie 'American Dreams in China', Cheng Dongqing is a career fanatic, unmarried, using speeches to replace sexual life. Peter Chan uses his paranoid personality and imperfect ending to interpret Cheng Dongqing, which is the most attractive part of the film, and the most touching part ends with no plot but this narration.

In fact, the prototype of Cheng Dongqing, Yu Minhong, is married and has a lovely daughter. If everything were perfect, it would probably not be attractive. The artistic treatment of the script is very successful, but on the other hand, it also shows a lack of confidence. A perfect happy ending is for New Year movies, which usually are popular that year but few remember later. The only New Year movie we often mention is 'The Dream Factory', but it has an imperfect, painful, and helpless ending.

The temptation of pain is everywhere; pain is the easiest to pass on. The Cowherd and the Weaver Girl, a match made in heaven, can only meet once a year. 'Ghost' is a timeless masterpiece; the director staged a love story between a ghost and a human that is impossible in reality but fictional in movies. 'Titanic' moved many to tears; the pain brought by the disaster of thousands of deaths, accompanied by the great brilliance of humanity, is the main line of the film. The elderly Rose's reminiscence of Jack at the twilight of her life pushes the whole movie to a new climax.

Happy things, where you are fine and I am fine, mostly leave no deep memory. The so-called empathy mostly refers to feeling pain. From crying at birth, to growing up, to adulthood, to old age, we need to experience too much of birth, aging, illness, death, helplessness, frustration, and anger. When we watch movies, we often want to find our own shadow in them. Grief and anger produce poets; pain is the best teacher.

If pain is a temptation, I have a lot. Can you feel it?