Jin Jide: A perfect interpretation of life, desire, sin and redemption with spring, summer, autumn and winter.

Spring-crying for life, the old monk and the young monk live together in a lonely temple that seems isolated from the world. The young monk is carefree and innocent, while the old monk doesn't talk much. He often looks at the young monk silently. Until one time, when the young monk was playing alone, he tied a stone to the fish, frog and snake, and watched them limping along with the stone happily, with a naive smile on his face. Seeing his behavior, the old monk tied stones to the young monk in the same way and taught him to look at everything around him with the same mood. When the young monk untied the fish and snake with a stone on his back, he found that they were dead and wept bitterly at the corpse. The old monk sighed and said, "The stone you tied to them is not the stone in your heart."

Summer-the longing for love, the days are getting dull day by day, the little monk grows up, but the quiet life is finally broken. One day, a sick girl came to the temple. The adult monk couldn't resist the temptation and finally ate the forbidden fruit with the girl. The old monk inquired about two people, and when the girl was well, he sent her away. The young monk couldn't bear the pain of losing his lover, so he secretly left at night with the Buddha statue on his back.

Autumn-sin, the young monk returned to the temple, at this time because his wife cheated and became a murderer. He had nowhere to run and returned to the lonely temple where he grew up. Because of the hardships of life, he is not as peaceful as before. His face was gloomy and his heart was full of anger. The old monk beat him up, then wrote the Prajna Paramita Sutra on the wooden floor in front of the temple, and ordered the young monk to carve it with the bloody knife. At first, the young monk was irritable and struggled painfully. The two policemen who came to arrest him made him on the verge of collapse. The master asked the police to let him finish carving the Heart Sutra. Gradually, he became more peaceful and focused, the original violence slowly dispersed, and finally completed the sculpture before dawn.

Winter-redemption, the murderer who was released from prison was middle-aged. When he returned to the temple, the old monk had turned into a snake. One night, a woman came to the temple with a baby and cried in front of the Buddha statue. At night, when the woman was about to leave the baby secretly, she fell into an ice hole on the lake and died. It is worth mentioning that the ice cave was dug by the young monk to get water, and a person's careless move may bring great misfortune to others. This may have become a stone in his heart.

The middle-aged monk adopted the baby. The middle-aged monk finally woke up. He sank the old Buddha statue into the ice cave in the lake, carried a stone on his back and struggled to climb to the top of the mountain with the new Buddha statue in his arms. When he reached the top of the mountain, the lonely temples in the lake and even the whole lake looked insignificant against the mountains. ...

Another spring, another life, the same scene. Small fish and snakes are tied by stones. ...

Some people say it's a prank of a little boy and monk, while others say it's a stone in his heart. Maybe who knows?

The "water" that carries out the whole story in the whole scene is a lake surrounded by mountains, and a small temple floats on the calm water all year round. "Water" also symbolizes desire. Buddhists pay attention to nothing. Desire is human instinct, and nothing can be controlled. On the way up the mountain to steal forbidden fruit secretly with the girl, a rising tide lifts all boats, and there is no way out, and I want generate.

Similar to "water", snakes have become synonymous with "desire" since the Bible. It also appeared many times in the film. The young monks first germinated their initial sexual consciousness in the scene of two snakes mating.

Another interesting scene is that the compartments in the temple have no walls, only doors. It is easy to understand that the "door" is a conventional passage, but it is against common sense to climb over the wall without entering the door. The young monk came in and out from the door. The first time the young monk "walked through the wall" was because he couldn't stand the temptation of the girl.

The stone lion in front of the temple, when the girl first came, sat on it. The young monk told her not to sit down, but when two people ate the forbidden fruit, he took the initiative to move the stone lion and let the girl rest.

There are two seemingly unimportant characters "chicken and cat" in the film. The similarity between the two is that they are both used as tools. Chicken as a boat to pull them back, cat as a pen to write the heart sutra. They were used as tools to save the young monk, and the young monk also set them free.

Generally speaking, this film with almost no dialogue contains many meanings, and every shot is worth pondering, full of different perspectives, and I recommend you to watch it!