In the scorching heat of August, a subject matter is starting to hit the ring.
Some say it’s teen movies.
Some say it’s horror movies.
Well, gaokao.
In China, there is a movie called “Little Joy”, which Sir has shared with us yesterday.
It’s about millions of families whose relationships are distorted by the same anxiety.
There’s another one that just started airing.
Weird.
The same students who are overwhelmed by the burden of higher education, and the same parents who are suffering from anxiety.
The conflict it presents is more complex and multifaceted.
The style jumps around a lot.
It can be salt, it can be sweet.
It can be brutal, it can be healing.
This group of eighteen year olds will break your usual perception of the school theme.
Youth, it turns out, is so hard to define…
The Eighteenth Moment
열여덟의 순간
The pressure to go on to higher education is even more perverted in Korea, which is next door.
How perverted?
Take the recent hit “Parasite” for example, the son of a poor family took the exams for two years to go to a good university, and then came back from military service and took the exams for another two years.
In Sir’s opinion, Eighteen Moments is like a continuation of City in the Sky, only the focus is shifted from parents to children.
Only the gaze shifts from parents to children.
Although they are all wearing the same school uniform and listening to the same class, the disparate family backgrounds and social snobbery have long been unforgiving.
But the disparate family backgrounds and social snobbery have fallen upon them mercilessly.
The opening scene of The Eighteenth Moment breaks the windowpane.
The storm of theft.
A watch worth 25 million won (about 140,000 yuan) that was left on the desk by the tutor of the class is gone.
Who could have taken it?
The suspicion was narrowed down to three people – the
Class president Ma Huiying (Shin Seung Ho), who returned to class the day he lost his watch, is a model student in his grade, but is kind to others, considering his top grade.
However, he is a model student in his grade, considering that he has the highest grades and treats people well.
What’s more, his family is known to be rich, so it’s unlikely that he would steal a watch.
Genius Jo Sang-hoon.
Scored high on his exams with little effort, and was well liked by his teachers, even though he was always a troublemaker.
He was suspected of having picked up a watch to play with.
The most suspicious one is transfer student Choi Junwoo.
He has a “criminal record”.
He was ordered to transfer to a different school because of violence and theft.
There is a “time to kill”.
He worked part-time and happened to come to the classroom to make a delivery, and took away the desk trash at the teacher’s request.
The most important thing is that it is also “caught with the booty”.
The watch appeared in Choi Joon Woo’s drawer in front of the whole class.
Is it?
On that day, Choi Joon-woo did take out the trash, and while checking the trash, he touched his watch.
When Choi Joon-woo didn’t react, Ma Hye Young quickly went through the trash for leaving something behind.
When Choi Jun-woo realized that the watch was gone, he threw the trash away without thinking.
After the watch was recovered, the teacher did not pursue the matter further.
Everyone “forgave” Choi Jun Woo.
But no one wants to listen to him any more…
I can’t even find out who put the stuff in my locker.
The storm has died down.
But it left more cracks.
The Eighteenth Hour doesn’t go into the most common argument of teen movies–that it’s a good movie.
“Pure”.
Instead, the campus is filmed as a miniature social ecology.
This tests the young actor’s acting skills even more.
The male lead, Choi Joon Woo, is a former idol boy band member of Wanna One, Yong Seung Yoo, who debuted in fifth place in PRODUCE 101.
There is no doubt about the fresh meat.
But he doesn’t have facial paralysis.
He is a member of the group, and he has been a member of the group for the past few years.
The contrast in appearance.
It also makes the explosive moments more striking and powerful.
Actress Kim Heung Gi.
At the age of 3, she started acting as a child glutinous rice dumpling actress, and at the age of 18, she won Korea’s highest film award, the Blue Dragon Award for Best Supporting Actress.
Her performance in this drama is not to be faulted either.
This micro-expression she made when she went to negotiate with the tutor alone can be considered quite social.
The students’ personalities in “Eighteenth Moment” are too prominent.
So much so that it backfired and the class teacher’s popularity was squashed.
We often say that the college entrance exam is not just an intellectual competition, but also a competition of the overall strength of the family.
It is the same in Korean society.
The pressures of wealth disparity and class differences pile up prematurely on students, forming an invisible wall.
This wall holds the secrets of every student.
Ma Huiying’s hand is his secret.
Beneath the aura of class president and bully, there is a hidden inferiority and anger.
Faced with the cram teacher’s preference for the gifted student, he smiled friendly in front of him, but turned pale behind him.
-You can’t go wrong with this kind of question.
It’s always the same mistake.
I’ll be the first to win.
-Not everyone is a genius like you.
With two faces, all he does to Choi Joon-woo is to vent and cover up his anger at his competitors and tutor.
Whenever he encounters unsolvable conflicts and unquenchable inferiority complexes, he will frantically scratch his wrist.
He has a brilliant older brother, a demanding father, a mother who is unable to protect her from domestic violence, and a competitor lined up at the back.
The itch and pain in his wrist is a reminder of the high pressure and low self-esteem he feels as if he is being overtaken.
Choi Jun Woo’s “past” is his secret.
This past is because he took the blame for helping his best friend resist bullying in school.
When confronted with Ma Hye Young’s hypocrisy, his first reaction is not to blame, but to ask why.
I want to hear your confession.
I think you have something to hide.
There must be a reason.
His silence is a sign of resignation to his status as an illegitimate child.
In the shadow of scandal and rumor, what is hidden is instead goodness and hope.
Yoo Soo-bin’s dream is her secret.
She believes that Choi Joon-woo is afraid to oppose Ma Hye Young because she has been living under his protection.
In order to get her to join Ma Huiyoung’s cram school, her mother sent flowers and wine to her doorstep and almost didn’t lick the soles of her shoes.
Even though she was already in the top 30 of her grade, her mother felt that it was not enough.
Her goal was to get into a university in Seoul, while her mother’s goal was to get into Seoul University.
Isn’t that what we have heard from our parents–?
You just need to learn to study now.
Two years of hard work ……
You can do whatever you want at that time.
These are all weapons.
Yet more students choose to cluster around the powers that be to get the upper hand, because they are convinced that the only way to move up is to hold on to their pants.
Whether it’s grades, or status.
However, are these invisible walls of youthful anguish and myth that exist only among students?
Apparently not.
There’s an interesting contrast in Moments of Eighteen, with the class teacher, Mr. Wu.
He is obviously the class teacher, but he has no authority, and if he refutes Ma Huiying once, he has to go out and smooth out his anger.
Even adults are unconsciously worn down, influenced and knocked down by such an atmosphere.
In Sir’s opinion, third-rate youth drama catharsis, second-rate youth drama sells sugar, and more youth drama indulges in didacticism.
The good thing about “The Eighteenth Hour” is that it looks like it’s about students, but it’s actually about questioning you and me, who are socially mixed up and held hostage by our age.
If you are labeled, do you have to acknowledge the label to live?
Do you choose to remain silent because you are always at a disadvantage?
There is no such thing as a life that has been ruined.
I’m only eighteen.
So do I. So do you.
That’s what the title of the film means-
The papers pile up like mountains, and reality is like walls.
But there are still moments when youth can break through the walls and emerge.
Because they are young, they have more capital to be fearless.
But is youth a limited edition?
It’s true that it only belongs to a certain person at a certain time.
It’s like being eighteen years old, instantly frustrated, instantly annoyed, instantly hot-blooded, instantly eccentric ……
Like the youths in “The Eighteenth Hour,” who were ravaged by pressure, family, and class, they still ran even though they were sunk by circumstances.
All they wanted was an answer.
As they grow older, the passion, whimsy and fearlessness they once had seem to have been eroded by life.
So should we be afraid of the ruggedness, the increasingly narrow vision, and the world we cannot see through?
Neither.
Youth should actually be a portable item.
It’s an attitude, an attitude that doesn’t need to care about age, it doesn’t need to care about encounters, and it doesn’t need to care about what other people think.
What you really need is a young heart.
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