The Chinese family drama, “Lighting Up the Stars” wonders what becomes of a well-lived life.
Cynical, gum-chewing Mo Sanmei (Yilong Zhu) is tired of being the funeral director in his father’s business, in the film “Lighting Up the Stars.” In his 30s, still single, he’s aided by buddy, Jianren Wang (Ge Wang) and Jianren’s fiancée Baixue Yin (Lu Liu).
Following his elder brother’s death, Sanmei grew estranged from his elder sister Mo (Zheng Weili), who looks after their aging father, Old Mo (Luo Jingmin). Sanmei is waiting to inherit the house-shop, with the hope to shutter it and move on, especially after his girlfriend Xixi (Qian Wu) abandoned him for a wealthier man. Sanmei once did prison time for getting into a scuffle over her.
But Sanmei’s shield of cynicism is about to crumble. He befriends a little girl after her grandma passes: pre-teen Wu Xiaowen (Enyou Yang). Her uncle, Uncle Wu (Chuang Chen), and his bossy wife, Auntie Wu (Dan Zhou), are too preoccupied to care for little Xiaowen, who they insist is an orphan.
They pay Sanmei handsomely to take on parenting duties. He does. After some mutual tantrums, Sanmei slowly lets his guard drop. He treats Xiaowen as a daughter, almost to the point of adopting her, even refusing Wu’s compensation. Xiaowen is thrilled to have found a loving dad in Sanmei to replace her doting grandma. But suddenly, Xiaowen’s mother Wu Hai Fei (Chun’ai Li) shows up to claim her.
A New Family
This unlikely father-daughter relationship isn’t warm and fuzzy. Sanmei’s no teddy bear, and Xiaowen’s no bunny rabbit. They are often on each other’s nerves.
But they are both learning and unlearning. Xiaowen learns Sanmei isn’t as uncaring as he pretends. Sanmei realizes his self-loathing is irrational. If a child, an utter stranger, can find him lovable, there must be something to the love his father keeps trying to profess for him.
Once, Sanmei consoles a young couple grieving over their dead child. The inconsolable father confesses they had been concentrating so much on their careers that they didn’t realize that it was more important that they were there for their daughter when she needed them. Sanmei implies at least one of them should have been.
Why is Xiaowen obsessed with recovering the voice recordings from her broken watch? They capture her grandma’s love; there are clips of grandma telling her to play in the shade to preserve her complexion, to come back inside after playtime, and to stay hydrated.
In themselves, the recordings seem as insignificant as the grammar of grieving (caskets, burial garments, ash-urns, prayers, anniversaries). But they matter because they remind us not to linger in the land of the dead. They ask us to bounce back to the land of the living, refreshed, renewed, ready to share, to sacrifice even more than we’re accustomed to.
Remember to Live
Incapacitated and in the hospital, Old Mo tells a chastened Sanmei that life is like a book. Each person must reach the last page somehow. Some books end with a period, others with only an ellipsis.
In life, nothing is bigger than death itself. Fame, wealth, and the rest are just smoke and mirrors. He adds, “One who does our line of work must have the heart of a saint.”
But does Old Mo mean that grief, graves, morbidity, and thoughts of the dead and dying must overwhelm our days? Far from it. He suspects that Sanmei hasn’t much respect for the living because he can barely summon any respect for the dead.
Sanmei resents his late brother whom he imagines, even now, remains Old Mo’s preferred son. Sanmei resents little Xiaowen, too, for hankering after her grandma’s memories, her wise words, and even her caring voice.
While he rudely tells Xiaowen that her grandma’s gone for good and she’d better stop moaning about it, genial Jianren spins a yarn he hopes will comfort the child. No, her grandma hasn’t gone forever, she’s merely turned into a star in the night sky. So, innocently, Xiaowen spends many a waking night teary-eyed, gazing up at the stars.
Slowly, Sanmei comes to his senses. As Old Mo implies, only those who honor the inevitable fact of death discover the truth about life. Then they treasure every moment with their loved ones.
The romantic notion that every star represents someone isn’t to memorialize those who lived and died; everyone lives, everyone dies. It’s to celebrate those who lived and loved. Love and loving, not life and living, is the point.
Check the Internet Movie Database website for plot summary, cast, reviews, and ratings. You can watch “Lighting up the Stars” on Netflix, Roku, and Fawesome.
These reflective articles may interest parents, caretakers, or educators of young adults, seeking great movies to watch together or recommend. They’re about films that, when viewed thoughtfully, nudge young people to be better versions of themselves.
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