During World War II, Japan sent 330,000 peasants to northeast China to carry out immigration invasion. After Japan’s defeat, the pioneering group was abandoned by the military and absconded on a large scale, and more than 4,000 Japanese children stayed in China and were adopted by local families. In 1972, China and Japan established diplomatic relations and introduced many policies to welcome Japanese orphans back to China, and the story unfolds in such an environment.
Grandma Chen goes to Japan with all the information about her daughter Lihua: a few letters, a photo, a painting and a Chinese name. As the clues unfold one by one, the audience is brought into the whole environment of the family search, following the plot and the ups and downs of the mood.
Starting from the simplest: the granddaughter has actually helped the grandmother to search for the address on the letter before she went to Japan, but as a result, the address no longer exists because the letter is several years old. So, once Grandma Chen arrived in Japan, the search for her family became convoluted.
Fortunately, from Grandma Chen’s words, we learned that Grandpa Chen gave the phone number of a certain association in Japan, which means that if we call to find the association where Chen Lihua was at that time, we should be able to find the relatives successfully.
However, when the granddaughter took Grandma Chen to an orphan who had survived the difficult conditions in Japan, the orphan did not have any information about Chen Lihua, and he repeatedly emphasized that he did not have a Japanese name, so it was like looking for a needle in a haystack to find relatives in Japan. Looking at such a half-century-old Japanese orphan, so hard to survive in the Japanese territory, also implies that the road to find relatives is becoming confusing again.
When the two granddaughters came to the restaurant exhausted, they happened to meet a kind Japanese retiree who often went there. After he saw Chen Lihua’s photo, he expressed his willingness to help them together, but he was worried that they would reject me, so he lied that he knew Chen Lihua.
The next day, he took his granddaughter two to a police friend’s side, hoping to help find Lihua through his contacts.
However, the police officer friend agreed with him while drunk and, after drinking at the reception, became completely unconscious until he was carried away on a stretcher. By this time, all three knew there was little hope. Even the audience felt entrusted with the wrong person.
When viewers see this, they are almost hanging on by a thread, hoping for a reversal of the plot. Sure enough, the writers are really good, and the search for clues shifts from photos, old addresses, and Chinese names to the content of the letter: the retired cop hopes to find a hint through the contents of the letter. In the letter, they found the owner of the house that Lihua rented to her. The owner did not want to admit it at first, but later, she told the reason why she did not want to admit it: Lihua could not speak the language after she came to Japan, and after she rented her house, she kept owing money.
The clues that were easily available were broken again. As the film progresses, when everyone is not sure how it will develop, it is still the retired police officer who gives hope. He thought about it, but decided to look for clues in the letters again. This time, through a painting, they found a mute man who was also an orphan. From him, they learned that Lihua and he were friends, and Lihua lived on his side for a while, but, because her family search failed, she needed to embark on another path to find her family, and thus, the trail was broken again.
The family search car, around the mountain path, around and around, the three people are exhausted, silent, thinking, helpless,At this time, the retired police officer received a phone call: the last time I thought the police officer friend called (the audience thought this time should be the real twist, must be the news), did not expect that The result brought: Chen Lihua is dead, years ago.
The film here, helplessness is written all over everyone’s face, we all thought it was going to end, and finally ended with the failure of the family search, but, just as the granddaughter began to put into normal life and work, and then one day received a phone call, the other party said they know the whereabouts of Lihua.
The granddaughter again left the work in hand, three people again to look for, in the sea of people in Japan’s festival, Chen grandmother eagerly walking and running while looking for,but the crowd looking for him a thousand degrees, but still can not see the heart called a thousand times the adopted daughter.
The film ended in the song of Teresa Teng.
I was impressed by the third of the above images, which really attracted me too much, because the time spent on the screen was too short, and in order to take a smooth screenshot, I rewound back and forth several times, and finally cut to my satisfaction: this is the continuation of their search for relatives after leaving the deaf and mute. The stillness of a clear water like a mirror, surrounded by a staggering number of farmhouses, in the distance are hidden mountains and farmhouses, dark green, light green trees, and hidden mountains, cascading; the most eye-catching is the near persimmon trees, red persimmons hanging densely on the trees, because there are no leaves, so the red stands out in the whole picture.
