OVP: Better Days (2020)

Film: Better Days (2020)

Stars: Zhou Dongyu, Jackson Yee, Yin Fang, Huang Jue, Zhou Ye

Director: Derek Tsang

Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best International Feature Film-Hong Kong)

Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

We will have time for two more nominated films this weekend before the Oscars officially hit on Sunday night, and the longest awards season in several generations concludes.  For those keeping track, I'm nearly done with seeing all of these films, and it's possible I'll have actually seen all of them by the time that we hit tomorrow night (I've been watching a lot of modern cinema lately, so I am kind of feeling a classics weekend at this juncture, so we'll see), but for sure we'll have two of the nominated pictures highlighted this weekend.  The first of the two is Better Days, a surprise nominee in the Best International Feature Film category, hailing from Hong Kong, the first time they have gotten a nomination in 27 years, and the first time a nominated film from the region was directed by a Hong Kong native, Derek Tsang.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie is about Chen Nian (Dongyu), a teenage girl whose classmate recently committed suicide.  She did so as a result of incessant, vicious bullying from Wei Lai (Ye), a pretty girl who basically tortures her victims, potentially as a result of a stressed & broken home life (where her father holds her to impossible standards).  Chen Nian enlists the help of a street tough named Xiao Bei (Yee), who threatens Wei Lai to keep her away from Chen Nian, and essentially becomes her bodyguard as her mother lives far away to make money for them to live off of.  When Xiao Bei is arrested, Wei Lai enacts another attack on Chen Nian, making her strip & cutting her hair on a video, and when Wei Lai, realizing what she's done, asks her not to tell, Chen Nian initially grants this request (saying Wei Lai must never be seen by her again), but after Wei Lai continues to harass her, she pushes her, with Wei Lai falling down a flight of stairs that kill her.  Xiao Bei initially takes the blame, but a police officer tricks Chen Nian into confessing she did it, and they both get a lighter sentence.  The film ends with the two of them many years later, happier, but with Xiao Bei still watching over Chen Nian.

The film is focused on bullying, which is an issue the Chinese government has been trying to tackle (we've also had a push to fix that in the United States), but the way the film handles the topic is a bit...basic.  Wei Lai is less a bully than an unholy sociopath.  She's vicious beyond all recognition of humanity, and while there are certainly people who fit this bill, there's so little reality in this performance that it feels like a cartoon, and it takes away from the picture.  The film itself is a bit of a mess in general, repetitive & running too long, and not as concerned with the best thing it has going for it (the central love story between the shy Chen Nian and the brooding Xiao Bei), but the black-and-white nature of the bullying storyline is so lacking in nuance they might as well have a giant billboard flashing above Zhou Ye's head proclaiming "EVIL!" in glowing red letters.

The movie, though, was a huge hit in China, grossing over $200 million.  The pandemic has highlighted the reality that while Hollywood still has much sway in global box office, the worldwide Top 100 is no longer the domain of English-language films exclusively, as this was the 39th highest-grossing film of 2019, and currently only three of the year's Top 10 worldwide grossers (Godzilla vs. Kong, Raya and the Last Dragon, and Tom & Jerry) are in English.  Jackson Yee, a former boy band member, has become one of the biggest names in Chinese cinema & is by far the best part of this movie, under-emoting & leaning in hard on the "rebel with a cause" routine.  I am curious to see if/when some of these films, like Better Days, start to have a major impact on American film markets.  Considering this is such a strange genre for this category with Oscar, I wonder if its nomination is a nod from Hollywood that they acknowledge the gigantic film industry that has become its chief financial rival in global box office dominance.