so in Everything Everywhere All At Once, at the very end overlaid with the final title card is a chengyu (i.e. Chinese idiom), also on the poster here, which I’m pretty sure makes it the Mandarin title: 天马行空 (tiān mǎ xíng kōng)
I love love love trying to figure out chengyu movie titles, there can be so many layers of meaning, having a whole film to contextualize a new chengyu is the absolute best. Disclaimer that some of this is a vibes-based interpretation of double- and triple-meanings that a fluent speaker might (and is welcome to) tell me is totally off-base, but media analysis is subjective and I’m just learning and having fun!
The literal meaning of 天马行空 is basically “celestial horse traverses the sky”, the idea of a mythical horse running with miraculous speed, as though flying through the air.
Baidu gives two idiomatic/metaphorical meanings – for literature or poetry, 天马行空 describes a writing style that is bold, powerful, imaginative, and unrestrained. Writing like a mythical flying horse, zoom zoom, love it, you’re describing the style of the spectacular movie you just made, genius, obsessed.
When 天马行空 is applied to people, translating the descriptions from Baidu gave me words like: impetuous, impulsive, fickle and impatient, restless, scatterbrained, not steady, not dependable, anxious, without peace of mind, impractical, and has unrealistic and fanciful ideas. Different vibes! Not quite as positive a connotation! Do we not like it when people’s brains zoom zoom like magical horses? What gives? I’m looking at the final character, 空, which upon closer study, means “sky” by way of “empty; hollow; void”, appears in words for fruitless efforts, empty slogans, wasted journeys, adding the meaning of “in vain” or “for nothing”. I’m looking at the third character 行, which in addition to meaning to go/travel can also mean behavior/conduct/deeds/actions. A sense of the magical horse in your brain going fast but accomplishing nothing? Almost like Evelyn as we meet her at the start of the film – restless, impatient, definitely without peace of mind, a million fanciful dreams unrealized – the fruitless efforts of a mythical horse.
On the other hand, this second chengyu dictionary’s entry has a decidedly more positive take on how it applies to people – the mythical horse is a metaphor for a remarkably talented person, and can be used to describe a style of literature or to praise a personage or fictional character. According to this guy it is ‘a vivid and distinctive image, an unconventionally graceful artistic conception, and has considerable romantic charm’. Beautiful. Getting a sense of the contradiction of the multiple Evelyns, spectacularly talented and successful in so many universes while spinning her wheels at a laundromat in this one.
The full line of poetry, 其所以神化而超出于众表者,殆犹天马行空而步骤不凡。which, and I really hope I’m translating this passably, might be something like:
“One ascends to godhood if one rises above the surface of the masses, almost as a celestial horse traversing the sky with a step out of the ordinary.”
I love this SO much. The universal sentiment of this, that nonconformity is so rare and extraordinary that it might as well give you magical powers and make you a god – so great! And then in the film, they make it literal! You literally DO get magical powers if you eat a tube of chapstick (or declare love for someone you hate!! or maybe just declare love for another woman!! or are into kink!!)!!!! Not to mention that 空/sky is also “void”, and 不凡/out of the ordinary is also “not of this world”, literally a film about traversing the void and stepping into another world. Obsessed.