The streetlights were already out, but the sky had yet to fully brighten. After the summer solstice, the days grow shorter, the nights longer.
It had been a long time since Lin Song had woken up this early. If he didn’t leave right away, he would never check off all the items on his to-do list.
From the kitchen, he could hear the pitter-patter of what might be rain striking the awning outside. Lin Song couldn’t tell if it was actually raining or just condensation dripping from an upstairs air conditioner.
The living room was still dark. Lin Song pulled the curtains back a crack and saw the wet road outside shimmering faintly.
Stepping out, umbrella in hand, Lin Song trod on a loose paving stone on the sidewalk. A jet of murky water that had pooled in the cracks shot up, splashing his other shoe. The stain it left on the suede looked like a glob of spit. Damn, that’s disgusting.
Just as he drove out of the underground garage, a red light flared on the dashboard. The tire pressure monitoring system warned that the right rear tire was low and needed to be checked and inflated. The windshield wipers swung frantically back and forth like a pendulum; the rain was just too heavy. Lin Song missed the gas station that offered free air, and by the time he reached the next intersection, he was already a full stop past it. He couldn’t be bothered to turn back.
After all, the warning was just “Low Tire Pressure.” By the time it became “Critically Low Tire Pressure,” this annoying downpour might have stopped. In the city, you could find a roadside auto shop anywhere to solve a tire problem.
When driving in heavy wind and rain, Lin Song never hogged the fast lane. He considered it basic driver’s etiquette. This was even more true with low tire pressure. Letting the fast cars have the fast lane is better for everyone.
Three hours later, the rain was still pouring.
On a foul morning like this, getting a “Critically Low Tire Pressure” warning on the highway would have dire consequences.
Lin Song remembered an old tire repair shop at the next intersection. After making the turn, he drove his car up onto the sidewalk and parked right at the shop’s entrance. He rolled the window down a slit and yelled to the old mechanic sitting by the door:
“Sir, my right rear tire is low.”
“Need a patch?”
“Could you please take a look? Just need to add some air.”
The old mechanic opened his umbrella, grabbed the air hose, and began inflating the tire.
Less than five seconds later, with a ding, the red warning light on the dashboard vanished.
“You’ve got a slow leak in that tire.”
“Ah, thanks! How much is it?”
The old mechanic simply waved his hand, as if to say, “Forget it, no charge.”
“Thank you, sir. I’ll come to you next time I need a patch.”
Lin Song’s client started their business at 7:30 AM. Early in the morning, although there were few customers in the shop, the sound of incoming delivery orders was already ringing nonstop as the kitchen bustled to prepare meals. He wasn’t sure if this counted as early or late.
After finishing his delivery, Lin Song rushed to the movie theater by Horn Lake.
He had booked his IMAX ticket three days in advance—a perfect center seat with no one in front or behind. Today was the release date of the new F1 film starring Brad Pitt. Lin Song could only watch it at noon, as he had to take his son, Xiao Lin, to the high-speed rail station in the afternoon and had dinner plans with an old friend from out of town. This way, he wouldn’t be taking up anyone else’s time.
The new film was being released first in IMAX, then in regular theaters, and finally on Apple TV+.
The film opens with a warm-up sequence of Pitt competing in a 24-hour endurance race. He lives out of his camper van, never staying in one place for too long.
Hans Zimmer’s score is retro and incredibly cool. A rhythmic bass drum hits hard on the third beat, instantly pulling Lin Song’s mind back three decades.
The visuals, the music, the sound effects—Lin Song felt they all nearly deserved a perfect ten, infinitely close to flawless. It was the most satisfying film he had seen in a theater in years.
The sight of Pitt on the starting grid alongside Hamilton, Verstappen, Tsunoda, and Norris was both amusing and absurd.
The roar of the racing engines was electrifying, so real it was almost insane.
Nothing is more thrilling than F1, except perhaps the moment a fighter jet rips through the air on a low-altitude flyby. Lin Song remembered the feeling of being beside an F1 track, and now, the film’s sound design was astonishingly authentic.
The plot is about a guy who was crushed by brutal competition and, after surviving a near-death experience, was abandoned by his team. Forced by circumstances, he becomes a professional gambler, but without a mathematical background, he inevitably loses everything. He then ends up as a down-and-out ride-share driver in the big city, taking odd jobs at construction sites. Then one day, his old friend shows up, claiming his own racing team is about to go under and begging him to come and save the day. It all sounds like a scam to lure him into filling a pit of lies. But the end of the movie tells you that this unlucky fellow really does manage to save his old friend’s venture.
This character plays dirty on the track, constantly skirting the red line of the rules, squeezing out opponents, and scraping cars. These clever little tricks are, in fact, a hundred times more difficult than just driving cleanly. What Pitt’s character seems to accomplish is akin to “sharpening your spear right before battle and still making it shine”—like a failing student who crams a few practice exams and ends up on the academic podium. Pitt achieves in the movie what is utterly impossible in reality.
In the film, this guy lives a carefree life, has been married and divorced three times, and, in the midst of intense competition, even finds time to perfect his romance with the still-charming female technical director.
Even with a full lineup of real F1 drivers and team principals making appearances, the plot remains hopelessly clichéd. If you break it down scene by scene, everything that happens in the movie is commonplace in our own boring and absurd world. But when you piece it all together, it can only be a Brad Pitt story.
For this new F1 movie, the distributors even tacked on a Chinese title after “F1” that Lin Song could never remember, claiming it was “to help audiences understand the sport of F1.”
But if someone needs F1 explained to them, you can be sure they would never go to watch a movie about it in the first place.