Why do Yaojun and Jasmine have a relationship in the movie "Eternal Life"?

I think we have a relationship because we appreciate each other and love each other. After the reform and opening up, it was popular in China to go south to "gold dig" for quite some time. Pan Shiyi and many other people stood out from that era and became trendsetters. In the movie, the conditions of Yingming's family have improved and they promised Yaojun to "look at their new properties and pick the ones that are good for them", which is showing the real estate boom. Jasmine quit her job and took the exam to go to the United States, which was in line with the trend of going abroad. The brilliance of "Eternal Life" is based on the fact that it steps into a time point that has a huge impact on the Chinese people.

The two families were originally good friends, but the biggest source of tragedy is undoubtedly that after Xingxing drowned, Yaojun and Liyun became a family that lost their only child. And their loss of their only child has become even more tragic in the times. During the family planning period, Haiyan forced Liyun to abort her second child, which made her unable to get pregnant again and caused irreversible trauma to the family. Family planning was formulated as a basic national policy in 1982 and evolved to local governments with stronger enforcement. As the film says, "strict control in cities and even stricter control in rural areas." There were indeed many incredible slogans at that time. In the film, Haiyan really regarded family planning as part of her job, and called a few big men to drag Liyun into a car and take her to the hospital for an abortion. It was not magical, but an absurd reality that was very likely to happen in that era.

In addition to the great era hidden under family changes, the friendship between the two families is also one of the themes of the film. The song "Auld Lang Syne" also serves as a clue in the movie. Whenever the melody appears, there must be a major event and it becomes a point of emotional release. The film shows the times not only through visible bright lines, but also secretly embeds the marks of the times on the characters. Xinjian, who was secretly attending a black-light dance and was arrested due to the "severe crackdown" in 1983. In prison, he heard that his girlfriend Meiyu was going to the south to make a living. He said, "The world is vast and there is a lot to be done."

This sentence was not coined by Xinjian, but was adapted from the sentence "The countryside is a vast world, and you can do a lot there." It was a true slogan during the period when educated youths went to the mountains and countryside. The film explains that Yaojun, Yingming, Xinjian and others once experienced the return of educated youth to the city, and this paragraph is repeated again. Xin Xin's words reflect the indelible mark of the times on him. This is also the best line the character blurts out in that state. The brilliance of the play makes the sense of the times not only appear on the surface, but also buried in unexpected places.