能用这样一种特别的方式和曾经的虾头旧友在纽约重逢——与几个“陌生人”看一部“如果没有这个机缘可能永远不会看”的电影《狂雷街区》，感觉很不错。顺带也给了我一个机会，借着回顾这部电影本身，随便扯扯。It was such a good way to reconnect with an old Seattle-era friend in New York: watching Crazy Thunder Road with a few “strangers,” in a setting where I probably would never have watched this film otherwise. It also gave me an excuse to think about the movie itself and to let some random thoughts spill out along the way.

观影之前，我自然没有听说过这部电影。唯一与之的联系可能就是 AI 告诉我，我很喜欢的影片《阿基拉》或许可以放进此片和导演 石井岳龙（Gakuryu Ishii） 开启的日本 cyberpunk 影像脉络里理解。AI 继而给我科普了一些关于此片的时代背景、导演的个人背景，以及一些简短的剧情提示。我并不是个厌恶剧透的人。Before watching it, I had naturally never heard of this movie. My only connection to it was probably that AI told me Akira, a film I really like, could perhaps be understood within the Japanese cyberpunk lineage opened up by this movie and its director, Gakuryu Ishii. AI then gave me some background on the historical context, the director himself, and a few brief plot notes. I am not someone who hates spoilers.

观影结束。我大体能理解导演的意图。整个故事围绕 Jin 展开。他觉得自己被旧的帮派领袖背叛，便自己成为新的领袖。但新的队伍显然不好带。在 Kamikaze（神風）和敌对帮派之间那场失败的群架之后，整个团体基本解散，被收编到一个极右翼政治组织里，接受着一种看起来近乎魔幻也毫无意义的军事化训练。Jin 很快就厌倦了这种生活，从组织里逃了出来。他身边两个“追随者”也借机一起离开。紧接着又是一场群架，Jin 从此残废，也失去了自己的同伴。出院后，他弄到了真正的武器，发动了自己最后的“战争”，去对抗那些旧日的债，并最终“赢”下了这场“战争”。电影结尾，他骑着那辆刹车坏掉的旧摩托车，朝山里驶去。After watching it, I think I mostly understand what the director was trying to do. The whole story revolves around Jin. He feels betrayed by the old gang leader, so he tries to become the new leader himself. But the new group is obviously not easy to lead. After the failed fight between Kamikaze (神風) and the rival gang, the whole group more or less falls apart and gets absorbed into a far-right political organization, where they go through a kind of military training that feels almost magical and completely pointless. Jin quickly grows tired of that life and runs away. Two of his “followers” use the chance to leave with him. Then comes another group fight. Jin is permanently injured and loses his companions. After leaving the hospital, he gets real weapons and starts his final “war” against the debts of the old days, eventually “winning” that “war.” At the end of the movie, he rides his old motorcycle, the one with the broken brake, into the mountains.

对我而言，这是一个人被自己的执念吞噬的故事。对 Jin 来说，骑摩托是他真正喜欢的事情。这份“真正”的喜欢来自很多原因：对自己生命的掌控，对自己身份的认同，抑或是唯一的舒适区，一种无法离开的幻觉。没有摩托车，他就没有“归属感”，处于“漂泊”的状态。与此同时，电影中其他每个人物也都有自己相对鲜明的、获得“归属感”的身份认同来源。To me, this is a story about a person being consumed by his own obsession. For Jin, riding motorcycles is something he genuinely loves. That “genuine” love comes from many things: a sense of control over his life, a way to recognize his own identity, maybe his only comfort zone, or even an illusion he cannot leave behind. Without the motorcycle, he has no real sense of belonging. He is drifting. At the same time, almost every other character in the film also has a relatively clear source of identity, something that gives them their own sense of belonging.

我觉得导演藉由主人公来表达的是，即使是暴走族这样的人群，只要展现出与其他人强烈反差的“活人感”，也会显得更鲜活可爱。只不过，电影里呈现的生活节奏和人物状态，离我自己的经验都实在是过于遥远。我既没有在他们同样的年纪有过相仿的经历，也并没有遇到过拥有那样生活的人。小时候在初中公立学校，偶尔听闻谁谁谁在所谓的“黑社会”，那些活在同学课后蛐蛐声中的故事，也都在三年毕业后完全断更了。最接近的现实连接，反而可能是最近在 KING 5 看到的这条 Aurora Avenue 枪击新闻 了。I think what the director is trying to say through the protagonist is that even a group like the bosozoku can become vivid and almost lovable once they show a strong sense of being alive, especially in contrast with everyone else. The problem is that the rhythm of life and the state of mind shown in this movie are both very far from my own experience. I did not have anything similar happen to me when I was their age, and I have not really met people who lived that kind of life. When I was in a public middle school, I would occasionally hear that someone was supposedly connected to the “underworld,” but those stories only lived in classmates’ after-school gossip and completely stopped updating after graduation. The closest real-world connection I can think of now is probably this recent KING 5 report about a shooting on Aurora Avenue.

所以，我必须承认，共情很难。基于此点出发，我与 AI 展开了来回交锋。我从主人公出发，质疑主人公，质疑电影，继而质疑导演，质疑时代背景，质疑整个社会。AI 倒是有着极大的共情能力，在照顾我的质疑感受的同时，也帮助我从质疑走向理解。So I have to admit that sympathy was difficult for me. Starting from that difficulty, I went back and forth with AI. I began with the protagonist, then questioned the protagonist, the movie, the director, the historical context, and eventually the whole society around it. AI, on the other hand, had an almost excessive capacity for sympathy. It acknowledged my resistance while also helping me move from questioning toward understanding.

AI 还有些神奇的幻觉，导致其金句频出。它会突然这样说：“我很喜欢一个定义：Drama is what happens when a person refuses to change.” 很明显，这样的定义没有任何出处，但是至少 AI 试图和我讨论：戏剧的本质是“冲突”，而在这部电影中，冲突就是 Jin 的拒绝改变。所以 drama 之所以是 drama，是因为主人公有着 dramatic 的故事，所以只有 Jin 能成为故事的主人公，而 Ken 不能。毕竟，Ken 这样的选择更“自然”，更“正常”，从而更“不戏剧化”。而现实中，愿意真正过 dramatic 生活的人是少数，但是人都天然更喜欢看 drama。而我只是把在现实世界中对“低回报高代价冲突”的抗拒，无端延伸到电影中，这或许是我对主人公难以共情的原因。AI also had some magical hallucinations, which led to a few suspiciously good lines. At one point it suddenly said, “I really like one definition: drama is what happens when a person refuses to change.” Obviously this definition had no real source, but at least AI was trying to talk with me about the idea that the essence of drama is conflict. In this movie, the conflict is Jin’s refusal to change. So drama is drama because the protagonist has a dramatic story. That is why Jin can be the protagonist, while Ken cannot. Ken’s choice is more “natural,” more “normal,” and therefore less dramatic. In real life, very few people are willing to truly live a dramatic life, but people naturally like watching drama. Maybe I was simply extending my real-world resistance to “low-return, high-cost conflict” into the movie for no good reason. That may be why I found it so hard to sympathize with the protagonist.

AI 对我的反馈中，还说我在看电影的时候天然会问：what happens next? 而主人公 Jin 则关心的是：what matters now? 活在未来抑或是活在当下，这两种完全不同的时间尺度的冲突，也许更接近我这次观影体验的核心。In its response to me, AI also said that when I watch a movie, I naturally ask: what happens next? But Jin is asking: what matters now? Living in the future versus living in the present, this conflict between two completely different time scales may be much closer to the core of my viewing experience this time.

当然，最终的结论是，《狂雷街区》这部电影讲述了一个人拒绝社会提供的人生剧本之后，还能不能写出属于自己的剧本这样的故事。主人公 Jin 没有找到答案，而导演找到了。这恰恰是导演和角色之间最大的区别。Of course, the final conclusion is that Crazy Thunder Road is a story about whether a person can still write his own script after rejecting the life script provided by society. Jin, the protagonist, does not find the answer. The director does. That may be the biggest difference between the director and the character.

另外，在讨论对于电影打分的问题上，AI 说“它自己最喜欢的评分方式”不是十分制，而是五个维度：Enjoyment / Craft / Ideas / Importance / Resonance。外加一个 Rewatch: yes/no? 这很有意思。我之前在豆瓣电影打分的时候，基本上只有五星——rewatch yes，或者 no rating——no rewatch。我觉得这可能就是最主观的评价了。Also, when we talked about rating movies, AI said that its “favorite way to rate a film” was not a ten-point scale, but five dimensions: enjoyment, craft, ideas, importance, and resonance. Plus one extra question: rewatch, yes or no? I found this interesting. When I used to rate movies on Douban, I basically had only two modes: five stars, meaning rewatch yes, or no rating, meaning no rewatch. That may actually be the most subjective rating system.

最后的最后，很开心 Seattle 分会场的开办。期待未来本地观影体验。Finally, I am really happy that the Seattle branch of movie night has started. Looking forward to more local movie-going experiences in the future.