The whole entertainment circle thinks I'm confused

Several people came closer.

Kicked the troupe's gong.

"Clang" sound.

The small gong fell to the ground.

The troupe teacher bowed and begged for mercy, "Man, man, you are so noble..."

The crowd led by the onlookers refused to give in:
"How dare you show up here, what a dirty thing..."

For a while, the scene was chaotic.

It wasn't until the men who went to capture Xiao Laizi returned that the eldest child who was leading the role of Monkey King saw this and yelled, "I'll fuck you uncle!"

Then he said: "Everyone, please stand still and don't move. You can buy real goods with real money. I, Little Shitou, will play for real today and let the grandpas open their eyes!"

The fledgling was not afraid of tigers. He scratched his face like he was sweating and reached out for a brick.

He hesitated and put the brick to his head, and finally shouted "Ah..." and hit the brick on his head with a "snap".

One shot and two breaks!
The crowd cheered loudly, and copper coins kept being thrown at them. The sound of the coins falling to the ground "clinking" brought the farce back on track.

The troupe's performance continued again, and the camera fell on "Yan Hong" and the child in his arms many times... Chen Lin realized that the child in his arms was probably the protagonist?

"It should be the role played by Wei Jihong? Overlord?" He thought to himself.

When the end stretched out, covering the entire downtown panorama, accompanied by a burst of children's "ouch" shouts, the scene turned and came to the theater troupe.

"What are you yelling about? I haven't said hello yet!"

It was the little stone that he had just been trying to move bricks with his head that was whipped on the butt by the master with a whip.

He could only hear him howling, and his master angrily said:
"You bullshit Senior Brother, you can't even play a fucking monkey, how will you behave in the future?"

"Don't think that you just played a trick today and made a brick. Do you think I spared you?"

"Snapped!"

A whip struck hard.

"Snapped!"

Another whip came.

"That's a dirty thing!"

This scene of beating the apprentice gradually changed from black and white to color. When Chen Lin watched it for the first time, he just thought that the movie was getting to the point.

It wasn't until he looked at it for the second, third, or fourth time that he realized——

He forgot a little.

I forgot about Yan Hong and the child who had been standing beside me.

That child named Xiaodouzi!
The intention here was not as simple as he first saw:
He initially thought it was just to create the atmosphere of the social environment at that time and highlight the gravity of that era.

After a few swipes, I realized that this was also to highlight another point...

The black and white filter in the previous paragraph shows that Xiaodouzi’s previous life was dark...

He is the illegitimate son of a promiscuous woman, living in darkness and behind others...

The towel wrapped around him also shows that he cannot show his true colors!
With the arrival of color graphics.

"This means that he is about to start a new life...a new life where he doesn't have to live in a dark corner or in the shadows!"

Yanhong leaned forward, Xiao Shitou and Xiao Douzi looked at each other...

The camera turned and came to an old street.

"Sharpen the scissors and sharpen the kitchen knife!"

The scissors-grinder sang as he walked.

A corpse wrapped in a torn mat on the side of the road happened to fall right in front of the camera.

Next to the mat is a pile of snow that has not yet melted.

This shot drags people back to the era again.

The audience couldn't help but feel terrified when they saw this.

realized.

It turns out that in that era, people were frozen to death on the road and it was not just talk...

It’s the norm in society!
The dark room was illuminated by a beam of light at the door, and the troupe's Master Guan symbolized this beam of light... He was the beam of salvation that re-gave Xiaodouzi his gloomy life.

Taking off the cotton cloth on Xiaodouzi's face, revealing a delicate face, Master Guan inspected Xiaodouzi's body from head to toe.

I was satisfied at first, but I didn't expect that it would end up being ruined in Xiaodouzi's hands...

Master Guan pressed Xiaodouzi's hand warmer pocket and pulled his hand out, discovering that the child was born with six fingers.

He was dissatisfied and indifferent, and said to Yanhong:
"You child, you have no life to live in the theater, take it back with you!"

The camera shot on Xiaodouzi's face, only the right side of his face, while the other face was still in the darkness...

This makes it clear to Xiaodouzi that one place is bright and the other is still dark!
Master Guan made things clear and pointed out:
"Think about it, with his appearance, didn't all the people under the stage who were listening to the show scare away?"

He picked up the teapot, and the camera fell on the street again, and the sound of "chopping knife" came again...

The camera returned to the room and fell on the bright red half of the body. That gorgeous face suddenly caught the audience's attention...

Even Chen Lin couldn't help but sigh: "The title of the most beautiful woman in ancient costume is not just for cover!"

I heard her voice sound like a warbler, saying: "It's not that I can't support him, but it's because the boy is too old to keep him, so he came to join you!"

She wiped away the snot on the tip of her nose due to the cold with one hand. As soon as she wiped it, her face and nose suddenly turned a bright red, accompanied by the big red flower on the back of her head, which was both tacky and beautiful.

"You accept him anyway!"

Speaking of this, she seemed to have thought of something, or she had already had an idea.

She originally relied on sex to serve people to survive. As soon as her eyes moved and the corners of her eyes curved, the smell of dust suddenly hit her face.

"Wow!" Chen Lin was quite satisfied with He Qin's performance. He Qin's performances in the past were not problematic. He always performed well, but he was always a bit pretentious.

This moment... directly broke Chen Lin's inherent impression of her!
"Just this performance... was enough for those directors to impress her with admiration!"

But the next moment, Chen Lin was stunned, and he was so shocked that he was stunned!
"As long as you accept him, you can do whatever you want~ Don't dislike us~"

The lens that originally focused on her body suddenly zoomed out, just framing the three of them...

After Yan Hong finished saying these words, her body softened and she knelt down on the ground——

"Hey hey..."

Now, let alone Master Guan, let alone Chen Lin, the entire screening hall was divided into two groups of people.

One group was shocked and speechless, like Chen Lin;
The other group could be said to have cried out in shock when He Qin kneeled down!

"hiss!"

Where does this kneeling mean kneeling on the ground?That simply touched the hearts of the audience!

Chen Lin didn't understand the meaning of this paragraph at first...

"Can't you keep the boy when he's grown up?"

seems like it?

She is a promiscuous woman, and it is really hard to keep a child. She really cannot stay in a promiscuous place...

But after the second and third brushes, he gradually got over it——

"I've only ever heard that girls can't be kept when they get older. When did you hear about boys?"

Combined with the subsequent plot...

"This seems to be a foreshadowing for Nv Jiao'e later?"

He suddenly realized, "It turns out that the plot begins to blur Xiaodouzi's gender from this point onwards... rather than the part where he breaks out of his shell and 'awakens'!"

……

Master Guan said again:
"They are all low-life, who dislikes whom? His grandmaster refuses to reward him with food, so no one can do anything about it!"

"Get up!" He said and pulled Yan Hong up to see off the guests.

Yanhong knew that she was going to send Xiaodouzi to the theater, so she couldn't do it without making some decisions.

Listening to the sounds of "sharpening scissors and sharpening kitchen knives!" coming from outside the house from time to time... She dragged Xiaodouzi and walked outside the house.

This section, from inside to outside, is full of heaviness and depression.

Like the baggage of an era!

When she came outside the house, Yanhong took Xiaodouzi's scarf and covered his eyes.

Xiaodouzi said: "Mom, my hands are cold, my hands are frozen..."

Yanhong put Xiaodouzi's head on the sharpening board and cut off his sixth finger...

During this period, the scene changed several times, occasionally mixed with the babbling sound of the knife sharpener...

There is also a scene of being blindfolded, which is accentuated by the image.

This all means... all of this is a fate that Xiaodouzi cannot resist!
Xiaodouzi didn't react at first. It was so cold that his hands were frozen.

When he took off his scarf, he realized...the camera cut to the theater troupe!
A fierce scream scared the little stone and knocked it off the stool...

"Hiss!" There were sighs and gasps in the screening hall.

It seemed that the guillotine was not on Xiaodouzi’s sixth finger, but fell on their hands...

Chen Lin couldn't help but put down the pen and rubbed the non-existent sixth finger on his hand...

Yanhong screamed again and again, holding the scarlet little bean in her hands and returned to the house...

The cry scared the children in the yard so much that they rushed up to investigate.

Xiaodouzi was so frightened that he ran away from the house into the yard, but was stopped by a group of children.

……

The lens turns.

Xiaodouzi's head was forced to perform the apprenticeship ceremony, and a bloody handprint was pressed on the contract...

Along with the erhu's babbling and sad sounds, the camera fell on the bright red face.

Her tears burst into tears, which were soon frozen to the point of condensation. Her scarlet hands brushed her hair...

At a loss.

"She doesn't know if what she's doing is right, but in this era... this is already the best choice she can make for Xiaodouzi!"

Chen Lin wrote this.

The room was dark, with only two red candles remaining, slightly illuminating the blurred figures of the people.

Yanhong took off her coat and put it on Xiaodouzi.

Xiaodouzi called out "Mother".

Yanhong decided to leave.

The camera slowly moved to the door. Yan Hong had disappeared, leaving only the pale color in the yard and the falling snow.

Seeing this, Chen Lin couldn't help but sigh, that era was indeed too difficult...

In order to survive, women had to fall into prostitution, and in order to be able to feed their children and keep their children alive, they were forced to separate their flesh and blood.

When watching it for the first time, Chen Lin was still a little confused. Why is there such a description of the sixth finger?Is it just to highlight the role of Yan Hong?
Should not be!

The movie ends here...

He looked at his watch. Was it 10 minutes?

But he felt that he hadn’t gotten to the point yet!
So what is it for?It wasn't until the second time she watched the movie that Chen Lin had a vague idea. The third and fourth time, she suddenly realized it again...

"If saying 'the boy is too old to keep him' is a metaphor for Xiaodouzi's first gender ambiguity, then... can the severed sixth finger be interpreted as... a reference to his gender? First castration?”

He thought about it and took notes.

The movie continues.

After Yanhong left, Xiaodouzi stayed in the troupe to learn singing.

At night, Xiaodouzi came to the house to rest, but all the children looked at him with the same eyes... that was contempt!

There was also a child wearing a ghost mask who mocked him: "Where did you come from a brothel? Go away!"

He also kicked off the cotton clothes wrapped around his hands with his feet.

The children booed:
"The things in the kiln... fell to the floor!"

Unexpectedly, Xiaodouzi picked it up and threw it into the stove!

"This is Xiaodouzi's farewell to the past and his mother!" He wrote this sentence.

Of course, it is also a portrayal of his character, repressive and paranoid...

……

The wind howls, and the camera falls from the glass window to the small stone face inside the window;

Accompanied by a hissing and shivering sound, Little Stone came in, "Ouch... I'm so cold!"

The children dispersed in a hurry and returned to their beds.

Little Shitou saw Little Douzi standing by the brazier with a stubborn look on his face, and asked loudly:

"Are you bullying him?"

Waved at him, "Come here and sleep with me!"

Xiao Douzi walked out, and Xiao Shitou quickly went up to stop him, but was pushed away by him;

There were stubborn tears in Xiaodouzi's eyes.

"Haha...you are so bold!" He lifted his pants and hummed, but then let Xiao Laizi sleep inside and threw his quilt to Xiaodouzi, "Hey, go on!"

He jumped on the bed, got under the quilt, and said with a smile:

"It's extremely cold outside. My pee was so tangled in the cow's eyes that it almost knocked me over!"

"Hiss, ha!" He took a breath of hot breath, rubbed his hands, and performed a unique trick for Xiaodouzi.

He pushed the object on his feet onto the candlestick.

"Ta!" There was a sound, and the room darkened, and the scene turned again, and it was dawn.

Xiaodouzi was taken to the practice room and forced to press his legs. Xiaodouzi was so painful that he cried and moaned——

The troupe teacher said:
"If you want to be prominent in front of others, you will have to suffer behind the scenes. Today is just a break in the topic. The article is still to come!"

Chen Lin felt deeply.

He realized that Xiaodouzi still had a long way to go.

Then Xiao Shitou watched Xiao Douzi being tortured, and couldn't bear it. Taking advantage of the practice of kicking, he kicked away a brick that was holding Xiao Douzi's legs down!
"Bean, bear with it!"

Unexpectedly, Master Guan saw this scene:
"Little Shitou, who are you cutting corners for?"

He immediately got angry.

First let Xiao Shitou get a knife and punish him severely with the back of the knife.

The little stone seemed to be used to it.

Even when he was being punished, he even winked at Xiaodouzi.

The camera fell on Xiaodouzi. The child did not scream, there was no panic on his face, but his eyes fell one after another.

The punishment is not over yet.

Xiao Shitou was forced to kneel in the yard with a wooden board and a hot water basin. He knelt for a whole day...

When night falls, the camera falls on the window and on the face of Xiaodouzi inside...

Even if it was his first time watching it, Chen Lin couldn't help but realize something was wrong!

Especially when Xiao Shitou returned to the house after the punishment, Xiao Douzi used a quilt to protect Xiao Shitou, and slept on his back at night to keep him away from the cold. This scene was even more complicated.

"Isn't this a script with a female protagonist? How come... the direction of the wind is so wrong now?"

Neither time nor stories wait for him.

The camera turned, and everyone arrived at a lake, practicing singing skills on the lakeside despite the wind and snow——

In a clever shot, the children have grown up.

With just one glance, Chen Lin saw red lips and white teeth in the crowd, looking as delicate as a young boy walking out of a scroll.

It's a bit ambiguous.

"Little bean?"

At this moment, he seemed to realize something unusual, and an idea swirled in his heart!
"It's not what I guess, is it?"

Chen Lin no longer distracted, but focused on looking down...

The camera came to the courtyard of the theater troupe, and the two shots cleverly advanced the plot of the story——

First, the teenagers recited the troupe's doctrine, and then began to memorize opera lyrics and polish their bodies.

If you memorize poorly, you will be beaten. If you memorize well, you will be beaten. In the words of the teacher:
"I memorized it word for word. I hit you... to make you remember it. You have to memorize it like this next time!"

Many people watching this scene were silent and silent...

All the teenagers were pulled by a few hemp ropes. This was a serious practice, explaining what it means to perform 10 minutes on stage and ten years off stage.

The camera accompanied the teacher's actions and came to Xiaodouzi.

Wearing white clothes, he is delicate and smart, and all the lyrics he recited are perfect and unique. Xiaodouzi can't get the sentence right!

This is not because he doesn’t know the lyrics, but because of his inner struggle against gender!
I was beaten again and again but still couldn't change my words. Finally, I was forced to join the sentence alone by the teacher...

First, there is a scene of Master Guan beating Xiao Laizi with a stick... He was beaten the hardest. This also foreshadows the different endings of Xiao Laizi later.

During the second brush, Chen Lin looked at this scene and sighed sincerely... "The fate of Xiao Laizi was doomed from the beginning!"

Then came the scene of "teaching" Xiaodouzi alone.

The camera missed the teacher's back and landed on Xiaodouzi's body. He was holding the hemp rope with both hands, and the teacher asked him, "Is the nun a boy or a girl?"

Xiaodouzi's eyes were filled with tears, and he looked forward, confused, "Yes, it's the man..."

The camera fell on the master. Master Guan looked behind him and heard him say: "You have really entered the realm of transformation, and you can't even tell the difference between male and female...ah!"

Xiaodouzi could never pass the test in his heart, so he was brought into the room by the teacher. If he memorized it wrongly, he would be punished once.

"Next time if you forget, I will beat you to death!"

Xiao Shitou hid outside the door and eavesdropped. The camera moved up from Xiao Shitou, from the window to the house...

When Xiaodouzi raised his bloody palm, another familiar voice sounded in his ears:

"Grinding scissors, sharpening kitchen knives..."

At the end of the shot, there is also the sound of the "kitchen knife" creaking and shaking...

As an old film critic, Chen Lin realizes that at every step of the film's development, what the film wants to express must be more than that simple.

Just like when Xiaodouzi had his sixth finger cut off, this cry sounded...

There must be a deep meaning this time too. This is the psychological journey of the character in the play.

He raised his middle finger to touch the nose pad in the middle of his glasses, picked up a pen and wrote blindly in his notebook.

"This time... what was chopped off with the kitchen knife was Xiaodouzi's last belief in resistance!"

……

Sure enough, when the young men were taking a bath that night, Xiaodouzi raised his hand and said: "Brother, if I am beaten to death tomorrow, there are three big boys under the pillow and mat, I will give it to you..."

The next moment, Xiao Douzi pressed his hand into the water - just as Xiao Shitou said, if his injured hand got into the water and was destroyed, he would not be able to perform.

But was stopped by a small stone.

The camera flashed to the house.

Under the soft and dim oil lamp, Xiao Shitou persuaded Xiao Douzi - "Douzi, you will be offering incense to the ancestor in two days. You just think you are a woman, so don't make the mistake again!"

In the oil lamp, the eyes of the two people flickered under the camera...

The next day, the teenagers were resting in the troupe yard. They were chatting about food. First they talked about pea yellow, and then Xiao Laizi retorted:
"Pea yellow? Pea yellow is nothing?"

"Have you ever eaten donkey roll? Where's the pot cake?"

Little Laizi, "It's all fucking bullshit, it doesn't taste good!"

"Then what do you think is delicious?"

"The most delicious candied haws in the world, the candied haws on a stick is number one!" Xiao Laizi stretched proudly and gave a thumbs up, "If I become a bad guy, I will have to eat the candied haws on a stick every day!"

At this time, the sound of selling candied haws came from outside the hospital.

Xiao Laizi pretended to walk to the door and looked outside through the crack in the door. He was discovered by Xiao Shitou and arrested him, but he heard him yelling:
"There are a bunch of such big kites!"

In an instant, the teenagers crowded over and opened the courtyard gate...

There are a lot of kites with red flowers and green willows, symbolizing the colorful world outside...

Everyone was confused for a moment.

Seeing this scene, Xiao Laizi couldn't bear it anymore.

Xiao Laizi, who was beaten every day because he failed to recite, took Xiaodouzi, who couldn't change his speech, and ran out of the yard.

Xiao Shitou chased him out, and the three of them faced off in the alley. Xiao Douzi stopped and reminded Xiao Shitou: "Senior brother, don't forget those three big guys under the pillow mat..."

Xiao Shitou also knew that if Xiao Douzi didn't leave, he might really be beaten to death - leaving might be a relief for him.

With tears in his eyes, Xiao Shitou threw his clothes to him and shouted:
"You're useless anyway, get out!"

……

There is no chance that Xiaodouzi will leave Xiaoshitou's three eldest sons.

When Xiao Laizi took out the candied haws of water from his sleeves and asked where the money for the candied haws came from... Chen Lin at this moment was both funny and sad!

On the bustling street, the two of them were driven to the side of the road by a carriage. Xiao Laizi took Xiaodouzi and took a shortcut to the theater...

The carriage that had just been driven on the street appeared again, and the owner of the theater personally greeted him.

The prelude to "When Love Is a Past" sounded, and the audience was immediately pulled in!
The crowd is like a sea... "This is Jiao'er? This is Jiao'er!"

The two followed the crowd into the theater and were shocked by the huge crowds and crowds of people in the theater...

Coincidentally, the performance started, and it was "Farewell My Concubine" performing on the stage!
When the two of them couldn't see each other, Xiao Laizi asked Xiaodouzi to carry him up... Xiaodouzi was still looking through the crowd!

Watching Xiao Laizi burst into tears, it was not because of the plot of "Farewell My Concubine" that he cried and shouted:
"How did they get into trouble?"

While wiping her tears, she said, "How many beatings will I have to take... How many beatings will I have to take..."

He burst into tears and said with despair, "When will I become a hero..."

This was the famous character he saw in his master's mouth in a real sense, but he felt more sad...

Now it was Xiao Laizi's turn to lift Xiaodouzi up, and he finally saw the scene on the stage.

Xiaodouzi was also shocked by this scene, or rather attracted... There were tears in his eyes, but there was light in them!
But Xiao Laizi mistakenly thought it was Xiaodouzi who peed on his face...

Xiao Douzi dragged Xiao Laizi through the crowd, and he decided to go back to the theater!

The screenwriter seemed to use Xiao Laizi's words to dramatize Xiao Douzi's life.