Better Days
Composite Score: 85.31
Starring: Dongyu Zhou, Jackson Yee, Fang Yin, Ye Zhou, Yue Wu, Jue Huang, Yifan Zhang, Yao Zhang, and Xinyi Zhang
Director: Derek Tsang
Writers: Wing-Sum Lam, Yuan Li, and Yimeng Xu
Genres: Crime, Drama, Romance, Thriller, Coming-of-Age
MPAA Rating: Not Rated
Box Office: $225.92 million worldwide
Why should you Watch This Film?
Better Days is the film adaptation of Jiuyue Xi’s novel In His Youth, In Her Beauty about a girl approaching her college entrance exam who forms an unlikely friendship with a street boy when he agrees to protect her from the students who bully her. The film stars Dongyu Zhou as the lead, Chen Nian, and Jackson Yee as her protector, Xiao Bei, and follows the development of their relationship, while offering a sharp critique and increased awareness of class differences and bullying and their interconnection in contemporary China. The innovative story that turns from romantic drama to crime thriller and back again as it progresses earned an Oscar nomination for Best International Feature at the 2020 Oscars, losing out to Thomas Vinterberg’s Another Round.
Why shouldn’t you Watch This Film?
Thematically, Better Days feels fairly tried and true, playing it fairly safe by leaning much harder on its anti-bullying messaging than its exploration of the socio-economic separation that exists in modern China (had it gone much deeper than its surface-level statement of their existence, I don’t know that the film would have gotten approval, even as a Hong Kong film). As such, we’re left with a lot of fairly familiar blanket statements that most viewers will agree with – that bullying is bad, that the system doesn’t do enough to address bullies, that bullies often exist because of poor parenting in one form or another, that bullying is becoming more widespread as society becomes less personal due to technological advances. It’s not necessarily the most engaging on that front, but its innovations in telling a story about bullying keep it watchable, along with a few bolder statements, like the inevitability of bullying (“You’re either bullied or you are a bully.”) and the bully not being some redeemable product of negligence or abuse.
So wait, why should you Watch This Film?
Those innovations in the typical bullying narrative and the additions of the romance and crime thriller elements elevate Better Days within its subgenre along with two strong leading performances. The influence of fellow Hong Kong filmmaker Wong Kar-wai on the sequences of Chen Nian and Xiao Bei riding his bike around Chongqing and growing closer across montages of bright color and intimate close-ups go a long way in building up the beauty of this film, endearing the lead characters to the audience through these moments of innocent connection. This connection then sets up the turn to crime thriller in the film’s third act as the pair become prime murder suspects and occasional fugitives from the law, creating this sense of conflict within the audience, knowing that something wrong has occurred and having to reconcile that with the love we have for the implicit perpetrators. It’s a brilliantly executed story and turn that goes above and beyond any high school bullying drama I can remember seeing and/or hearing about.
Making this impact and execution possible are the two leading performers – Dongyu Zhou and Jackson Yee. Dongyu’s performance as Chen Nian develops as her character does from quiet, stereotypical shy girl to determined student to stoic survivor, portraying each moment of her development with subtle authenticity, giving emotion when it calls for it and stoicism when it doesn’t in intense fashion. The trauma her character experiences throughout the film would have any person coming unhinged, and she portrays the more refined side of that falling apart brilliantly. Likewise, her counterpart Jackson Yee gives an inspiring turn as the troubled youth Xiao Bei. The smoothing out of his rough edges from the opening of the film to its close always feels natural, and the actor looks equally at home in street fights and in the clothes of an office worker. His gradual openness to new relationships provides the emotional core that the film needs to bring home all of its themes and plots, as he goes from vaguely altruistic street kid to the young man ready to risk it all for the girl he loves, engaging the audience at every turn with his quiet tears, sudden outbursts, and little jokes. Together, the couple provide the standout performances that the film needs to win any audience over.
A strong leading duo and innovative additions of romance and crime to the typical trappings of an anti-bullying high school drama make Better Days a refreshingly original film from Hong Kong filmmaker Derek Tsang that is worthy of its place among the greats. Its familiar theming can make it feel perhaps a bit too safe at times, but the intensity of its story additions help it overcome that cloying familiarity. The film is currently available to stream on Amazon Prime Video for anyone hoping to watch it in the coming days.
