In the spring of 1981, in the No. 3 Tube building of Qinchuan Machinery Factory, two babies cried one after another. Chen Guang, the son of the workshop director, cries loudly; Lin Xi, the daughter of the technician, is well-behaved and delicate. They were the first "naked" couple in the building.
The long corridor is their entire world. The stoves of every household are placed outside the door, the aroma of the food is mixed together, and the secrets cannot be hidden. Here, Chen Guang is the king of children, leading Lin Xi and a group of friends in the building: the shrewd Zhao Xiaojun, the honest Fatty Liu, and the cry-loving Sun Xiaomei, playing hide-and-seek, making pictures, and rolling hoops with old tires. When a family makes braised pork, the children can take a bite; when a couple quarrels, the whole building can be the "referee".
The years passed quietly amidst the opening song of "Xinwen Lianbo" and the advertisement of "Yanwu" radio. The wave of reform also washed away this seemingly stable "little castle". Some people go south to do business, while others have no choice but to get laid off. Due to differences in personality and concepts, the Chen family and the Lin family have gone from being intimate to having secret grievances.
The friendship between Chen Guang and Lin Xi also quietly deteriorated as it grew. When the slogan "Learn Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry well" resounded throughout the campus, and when stickers of Hong Kong and Taiwan celebrities were plastered all over the notebook, the boy who had vowed to protect her forever began to deliberately alienate him because of the teasing of his buddies; the girl who had followed him unconditionally also began to fill her diary with unspeakable thoughts.
"Tongzi Tower" tells more than just the bond between Chen Guang and Lin Xi that spanned twenty years. It is also a collective hymn dedicated to the youth of the 1980s. It is about the collective life under the protection of the "unit", about the collision of parents' "iron rice bowl" ideas and the children's new ideas, and about the confusion and choices under the wave of "going to the sea".
When the fireworks of Hong Kong's return bloomed on the TV screen, the Tongzi Tower, which had been in disrepair for a long time, finally faced the fate of being demolished. The group of children who had grown up here would also go their separate ways and go to their own lives. But no matter how far they go, that noisy corridor will always be the hometown that connects them throughout their lives and houses their most precious memories.
Purpose: Life forces us to grow up, get separated, and say goodbye, but some things never change. For example, Chen Guang will always support Lin Xi, and that long corridor will always be the hometown we can go back to.