Happy Times

Happy Times
by Yimou Zhang

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Movie Reviews of Happy Times

Movie Review: A Chinese Hepburn?
Summary: 5 Stars

In this English subtitled film that takes place in an unidentified Chinese mainland city, an impoverished fifty-something Lothario named Zhao (Zhao Benshan) claims to have found true love with a divorcée (Dong Lihua), and proposes marriage. Zhao's new fiancée is delighted, but says the ceremony will cost him a lot of money. Not admitting his penury, Zhao and his best friend Li (Li Xuejian) refurbish an old, abandoned bus out in the woods into the Happy Times Hut, a cozy retreat complete with bed and covered windows where young couples can "relax" - for a modest fee paid to our two heroes. Thus, Zhao can brag to his fiancée that he's a "hotel" manager, and business is booming.

Enter Dong Jie as Wu Ying, the teenage stepdaughter of Zhao's bride-to-be, abandoned into the latter's care by her former husband, Wu's father. Wu is totally blind, and is treated with petty cruelty by her stepmother and stepbrother. For example, the former forbids Wu to eat the treats (Håagen-Dazs ice cream) she brings into the house for her grossly overweight porker of a son (Ling Qibin), who, in turn, steals food from the sightless girl's bowl. Wu is affection starved, and dreams only of being reunited one day with her father, who will by then have earned enough money to have her sight restored. In the meantime, the stepmother nags Zhao into giving Wu a job at his "hotel". Zhao is understandably reluctant, but finally agrees. He figures he can convince the girl that the bus is one of the hotel's outlying cabins, and can employ her to tidy the place up after each set of "guests". However, his plan goes terribly awry when, as he and Wu arrive at the site, the bus is being hauled off by a crane in a public beautification effort. By this time feeling sorry for the girl, Zhao concocts an even more elaborate plan with several retired cronies to give Wu a "job" as a masseuse in a "massage room" created much like a movie set in an abandoned manufacturing plant. After all, the girl is blind and she won't know the difference, will she? And having a job apparently earning her own money makes her incredibly happy, especially as she's now living away from her cruel family in Zhao's own poor apartment, passed off by Zhao as his hotel employees' living quarters.

Director Zhang Yimou has crafted a simple yet lovely film around the lives of ordinary people. Dong Jie is delicate and winsome in the best Audrey Hepburn tradition. Her Wu Ying persona illustrates how little is required for happiness when one's life is basically miserable, and she demonstrates an inherent toughness of spirit that earned this viewer's profound admiration. Benshan works his way into the audience's heart as the man willing to become something of a father figure to the lonely girl. Lihua and Qibin are extremely effective as Wu's hateful tormentors. I suspect that if a film with an identical plot had been produced in America, those groups advocating the rights of the "visually challenged" would vociferously complain that the storyline was patronizing and initiate a lawsuit. Give thanks that HAPPY TIMES comes from a less politically correct environment, and see it.

Summary of Happy Times