Film Name:门徒 / Protege/Prostatevomenos, O
Compared to current anti-drug films, 《Protege》 is the godfather of the drug world.
The story starts with the character himself, the drug-dealing bigwig’s careful, suspicious, and self-brainwashing way of telling Ally at the electrical shop that drug addicts deserve it, an identity he hates but can’t turn back from, hence the kind of panic that emerges when Ally asks him why you’re so mad at him. But even this is not all impersonal, so he still believes that Ally is his disciple, even if he already has suspicions, he will still go through all sorts of ways to prove his suspicions wrong, he saved Ally, really treat him as a real brother, and want to introduce his sister to him.
Ah Fong and her husband, we always thought that her husband was the one who took her to drugs, she tried to find out if she could quit drugs, only to find out that she really couldn’t. This is something that Ally believes in and the audience believes in, so Ally helps her and sees how hard she tries, but her husband’s presence surrounds her again like all that darkness, and she realises that she can’t get rid of it at all, and accepts the reality. Here we will still kind of blame Ally, why she already helped her once and not again. When Ah Fong dies and Ah Lik meets her husband, he says that he took drugs because Ah Fong took drugs, and he wanted to know if he could quit before he took drugs. At this time, Kun’s line about not trusting what drug addicts say starts to come to mind. This also tells the audience that the humanity of drug addicts is underneath the drugs, and by giving them what they want, they will borrow your sympathy and kindness and human weakness. So it no longer matters why Ah Fong actually took drugs, nothing is worth believing because they took drugs.
Ah Fong’s daughter is actually a very crucial character, she is like the last ray of hope for drug addicts. That’s why Ah Lik was so angry when he saw her daughter picking up candies from the floor to eat, and he was disgusted when she knocked on his door behind him and said she was hungry but couldn’t wait for the chopsticks to be brought in so she grabbed them with her hands. This reminds Ah Li of Ah Fong, he does not want her to have any of Ah Fong’s appearance, do not want her to touch any dirty, should not have touched things, even if you are starving to death, he does not want that side will be revealed. But the little girl was indeed different, when she finally walked over and threw that box after Ah Li opened it, and went back and hugged Ah Li, in that moment, she really was just wishing for it, the same light that Ah Li had seen for so many years undercover.
Throughout Ally acts like a bystander, conveying to us the relationships of the different characters. But he’s not cold, he’s warm, he helps the injured dog, he helps his neighbours, even when Quin is arrested he still has to set the record straight and helps Quin out by letting him die just like that. But the trauma inside him, the shadow left behind by witnessing humanity against his conscience is still huge, and in the end, when he lies on that couch, he also finally understands why someone would go on drugs.
Which is scarier, the emptiness or the emptiness of drug use?
ps: This film accepts the manufacturing, source and sale of drugs very clearly, breaking the audience’s curiosity about drugs. This film breaks the audience’s curiosity about drugs and makes everyone understand what it is and what happens when you touch it. It can be said to be a very good anti-drug film.
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