Director's statement

In Northeast China, 'Thug' means people who muddle along the society, named as” rowdies”. at the end of 2014, I aligned my lens at Yang Yi, he was the so-called big boss of some local” thug”, while now he has nothing to do with staying at home all day. I wanted to shoot his life as a muddler, he said life is completely different from before when it was filled with fight and glory. Although the friendship and relations are still there. Yang Yi’s friends always went to his house, so, I was getting in touch with more and more thugs with the same experience, but different stories. Brother Qi is a friend of Yang Yi, who values relationships, and makes a living on collecting debt for others, when he took me to the base, the thick curtains, camera and the Statue of Guan Gong, (Chinese god of treasure,), the kind of atmosphere had puffed out a story. While all of the people inside are playing a game of gambling. The vendetta and daring were left behind as a history. With the development of society, Making a living is harder than leading gangsters, the problem of face and respect is always something they are considering, therefore, escapism is the solution for many of them. The movie was shot from 2014 to 2021, during which a lot of things happened, the thugs were disappearing, because they needed to survive in society. I had thought it would be a local gangster story of Northeast China, whereas, it turns out to be a portrait of “life is hard “.