A24's new Netflix series, Beef, is a classic film noir recipe. But it's a ten-episode show with a bigger belly that can hold more things. The East Asian characters concocted by the East Asian team, the fetters of two similar people rejoicing as enemies, individuals escaping from family life, and carrying out Freudian spiritual tracing..."Angry Life" pretends to be either fashionable or fashionable. The eternal topic makes this pot of chowder popular and popular.
"Furious Life" poster
But the best thing about it is the film noir part. In the parking lot, Danny Zhou (played by Steven Yuan) was reversing the car, and Amy Liu (played by Huang Ali) who was parked at the rear of his car honked wildly. Beautiful flower beds in the neighborhood. The two, who were not angry enough, started a serial revenge of human flesh, trouble, and role-playing.
The obsession and sarcasm in film noir are gradually full of bows in the escalation of contradictions. The audience sitting in God's perspective sweated over their misunderstandings, and when they gradually showed similarities, they had good wishes, wishing that they could "see" each other and sit down to chat.
Stills of "Angry and Choking Life"
Before the last episode, they were like cats and mice, often swapping identities. Danny and Amy are tense, dealing with revenge on each other and the mess of their respective lives. The tricks are exhausted, and one wrong step is wrong. It seems that the time is finally turning around, but it is the beginning of more bad luck.
However, "Anger and Choking Life" has a warm ending. It breaks the rules of film noir with an ultimate settlement. That's because, to the fury of destruction and vengeance, there is an equal adversary. Danny and Amy use each other as weapons against this formidable adversary. They were extremely destructive, but their opponents were not bad either. After 18 rounds, they were barely a draw. The power of destruction finally turns to the human heart, and it is the defense of the heart that defeats it, thus avoiding self-destruction or the end of nothing.
Stills of "Angry and Choking Life"
"Furious Life" is very similar to "Everything Everywhere All at Once". It looks neurotic and loud, but in fact, the swords are all inward, pointing to the internal depression of East Asian families and the difficulty of individual struggle. The characters played by Michelle Yeoh, Ali Huang and Steven Yuan are in different classes but have similar predicaments. Neither of them is good at communication, and their sense of responsibility overwhelms their nature and likes and dislikes. The resulting destructive force causes Michelle Yeoh to explode in time and space, and Ali Huang and Steve Yuan break free from the shackles of low-key East Asian immigrants and become street bullies.
They are usually sluggish, but they are full of energy when they are unrestrained. Michelle Yeoh's fighting scenes show her natural elegance. Ali Huang and Steven Yuan chased each other down the street, enjoying the physical and mental joy that they might not have had in their childhood.
"Life of Anger" is also the same as "The Transient Universe", it is not limited to the story of East Asian immigrants, but expands to a more universal narrative. Danny's younger brother Paul (played by Jan Zimano) has found a white girlfriend, and Danny persuades him to marry a Korean American according to his parents' wishes, "otherwise you will have a mixed race with round eyes like insects. Just staring at my parents." Despite the joke, the Asian faces in the play have long been stained with the colorful colors of the immigrant society.
Stills of "Angry and Choking Life"
Danny and Paul's cousin Isaac (played by David Cui) looks like the centipede in the old version of "Journey to the West", with the style of a street boss, and his practical style is very "black". Amy's baby boy husband, George (Joseph Lee), has a yellow skin and a white heart, a naive and soft heart of a young man. Paul is a representative image of teenagers regardless of nationality or race. Billionaire Jordan (Maria Bello) has no borders either. She is one of the batches of super-rich people who appear in the next door "Succession" (Succession), which fits the characteristics of this type of person-empty, arrogant, regards ordinary people as inferior creatures, and has a set of narcotic life philosophy: Everything fades away.
Including the two protagonists, every character in "A Life of Anger" is narcissistic and always puts himself first. But these two protagonists are not quite the same as the people around them. Both Danny and Amy live among a group of dreamers with their feet on the ground. Both of them were bread earners in the family.
Danny's cousin and younger brother are always looking for the next opportunistic opportunity, and a pair of stupid thieves under the cousin know how to add fuel to the fire. Amy's weak husband is like a flower monk who eats vegetarian food and prays to Buddha, meditates and practices Zen, opens and closes "righteous thoughts" and "gratitude", and gently supports his wife's career. He is not the worst partner, but he is too stupid, lacks the observation ability to penetrate into the inner world of his partner, and knows nothing about society. This respectable lazy man can only use the magic balm of the spiritual guide and rub it on Amy's anxious forehead. Lazy, double-standard, and severely lacking in talent, George and his artist mother Fumi (Petty Anwu) are the perfect mother-son pair. From appearance to words and deeds of the latter, it is reminiscent of the Western world's long-standing hostility towards Yoko Ono.
This family is the main source of Danny and Amy's explosive behavior. They hate the difficulty of making a living, and they have to put on a mask of tolerance and concern to their family members, and continue to live happily. East Asians should be able to understand this point. For a long time, they have been polite and tolerant to each other, but in fact, their grievances have long been deep. Once you encounter a hurdle that you can't get past (such as the division of inheritance), you will immediately tear your face and don't miss it, because the relationship has long been exhausted in the past years.
Maybe it's because I'm an East Asian, and most of the audience of this show is not. In my opinion, it uses too much space to let the characters express themselves, and even filmed Danny and Amy's family scenes when they were young. Help Western audiences understand context. Every time at this time, its rhythm will be disrupted, causing small pits one after another in the coherent plot.
In terms of character design, Amy's husband George and Danny's ex-girlfriend's husband Edwin (played by Justin Min) are also too similar. Two weak clown-like characters, save one. Whenever they have a role, there is no choice but to fast forward.
Stills of "Angry and Choking Life"
When further exploring why the lives of the two protagonists got out of control, "Anger and Choking Life" did not give a more in-depth answer. Later, both Danny and Amy went back to their childhood memories. The faces of those around them who depended on them and manipulated them all became clear. Satirical depictions of the rich are also brought over. Naomi (Ashley Park) and Jordan, sister-in-law-turned-lovers, millionaires and jealous retainers, the writers usher in their fates in an outrageous way. This low-level method of catering to the audience also reduces points.
"Maybe no one else to blame, it's just my nature." "Paul, Mom and Dad's house is on fire because I wired the wrong wire. I threw away your college acceptance letter."
By the end of the filming, "Furious Life" became the opposite of film noir. It allows Danny and Amy to also stand in the audience's God's perspective, look at the pair of "sacred twins" (George's words) who are surviving in the desert with compassion, repent, and then gain inner peace. After ingesting the hallucinogenic poison berries, the two enter each other's minds and engage in long conversations/narratives.
These words are not profound, but they are what hippie youths would have said half a century ago. But for Danny and Amy, it was new and interesting. Because they haven't chatted so loosely for a long time. There are more practical things to attend to every day, families to feed, busy deceiving yourself to do, and darker emotions to hide from. This kind of rambling about society, politics, and the times, which is helpful to mental health, has long since disappeared from their lives.
So in the end, the show settled down to a very simple place. Danny and Amy's "psychological problems" are nothing but the common anxieties and irritations of the busy middle class. It is not easy to make money, and they are always worried about class slipping. My family and friends are all there, and my parents are all there, but no one can chat for fifty cents or talk about nonsense.
Even Fu Mei, who looks glamorous and free, can't sit still alone in the restaurant, looking around. She grabbed her phone and left a message to two friends, just to find someone to chat with.
In the finale episode, Amy's youngest daughter (Remy Holt) goes on a "hike" with her uncles and has "the happiest day ever." Amy and Danny, who have experienced ups and downs, are also very happy. People who have been disciplined and brought up can only be a carefree person and express their views on the world a little bit only when they are taking risks. It's like the housewife in "The Transient Universe", who made such a big noise just to be herself once.
There will be many more films like this in the future. We've become discouraged and don't expect heroes to save the world. But welcome to jittery people who are as flawed as we are, taking a wrecking pill and turning the world into a crazy mess.
At the end of the credits, when Amy and Danny find their inner peace, we may feel disappointed and think: Oh, it’s just that. They finally ignite their passion, but fall into another unimaginative hot soup. In fact, the last third of "A Life of Anger" has shown the fatigue of lack of motivation and too much nonsense, but with the momentum ahead, it is still a masterpiece that can be read in one go.
If there is a next season, I hope they will do more and talk less. Don't worry, we can all understand their distress.