Cheap Happy Times (DVD) (Benshan Zhao, Lifan Dong) (Yimou Zhang) Price

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Customer Reviews of Happy Times

Happy viewing, at least.
Zhang Yimou's ironically titled *Happy Times* is really a remarkable tightrope act: it offers us some very sappy melodrama while commenting on its own artifices, and gets away with it like a charming thief. Get a load of this plot. . . . A fat divorcee with two teenagers -- her own boy and a blind, unwanted step-daughter left behind by her ex-husband -- gets involved with an unemployed proletarian named Zhao. Zhao, depressed, broke, and lonely, claims he's a big-shot hotelier in order to impress the divorcee, who turns out to be very hard to impress. Hence, Zhao's lies -- as one might expect -- become more grandiose and difficult to sustain, especially after the divorcee dumps the unwanted blind girl onto his doorstep. "I'm sure you can find SOME work for her at your fancy hotel!" the woman declares. Zhao hits upon the idea of hiring the girl as a masseuse for the imaginary hotel's wealthy guests. But how is he going to pull THIS off? Desperately, he lets the girl stay in his shabby apartment, which he claims is a "worker's apartment" -- his OWN place, of course, is some unspecified mansion elsewhere. Of course, by now he's forced to get his fellow-unemployed friends in on the act: they pose as the wealthy guests and receive massages from the girl in a decrepit factory that they have hastily dressed up as a massage parlor at the "hotel". Once these jobless pensioners run out of real disposable income, they tip her with rectangular cuttings from brown paper bags instead of money. This all sounds very cruel, I know, but just watch the movie: Zhao and his friends come to feel a deep fondness for the poor wretch, who -- you guessed it -- just wants to find her father somewhere in Beijing so that he can pay for a procedure to cure her blindness. This whole set-up -- poor man, blind girl, and their unlikely friendship -- could so easily slide down toward appalling sentimentality. But Zhang Yimou avoids that by making his characters well-rounded: selfish one minute, solicitous the next; hopeful one minute, suicidal the next; comic one minute, tragic the next. The story requires an artist to negotiate the narrative through the pitfalls of cliches that would otherwise sink it. But then, there aren't too many directors equal to Zhang Yimou's artistry, anyway. And here's a tip to the filmmakers out there: don't mistake the manipulative plot devices in *Happy Times* for universal situations. This is a story that could only happen in China. Therefore, no "loose remakes", please. Leave it alone.

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Heart rending
My university's east asian cultures department is showing an east asian movie every friday for a month and this was the first one shown. I finished watching this movie a little over an hour ago, and it still is affecting me.

It is about a lonely man named Zhao who is trying for the 18th time to get the perfect wife who he thinks he has found in quite a large woman with an obnoxious son, and a blind step daughter. Zhao tells the woman that he owns a hotel and that he has the money pouring in. What he has in fact is an old bus that young couples frequent to make out in.

The woman hates her step daughter and dumps the girl on Zhao. In order to keep up his appearance as a wealthy man he builds a fake massage parlor along with a group of his friends who are also out of work. The girl Mu(?) is happy working with Zhao, but of course things don't stay that way.

I loved themain character Zhao from the instant he appeared on the screen he is just a very likeable guy. But one does feel pretty bad for the yung girl who is not wanted by her step mother or her father. She finds olace with a middle age man who keeps her just to put up appearnces. The ending will leave you in tears once you see how Zhao and the girl's relationship grows.

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Perfect
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I've long been a film buff - my favorite films tend to be artsy and rather pedantic. Because of this, my family generally doesn't like to sit with me and watch movies.

So, when I started "Happy Times" last night, I thought they'd gradually wander off and find something else to do.

But, they were enthralled! This movie is the perfect balancing act between comedy, drama, and the enduring love we feel for those who have touched us in a special way.

This is a great, great movie.

Too many Americans shun foreign films. This is one they shouldn't miss. When the movie ended, my oldest son turned to me and said, "Wow. I think Hollywood has forgotten how to make movies like this!"

American filmmakers seem to think they have to descend to the baser instincts in order to make "adult" movies.

Yet, "Happy Times" - and countless other foreign films - never seem to sink to this level. These films are always excellent.

I think the issue is that Hollywood has forgotten how to write a good story; they've forgotten that basic human values can be enduring, can be entertaining, if only they would jettison their cynical baggage.

"Happy Times" will make you laugh and cry, smile and reflect with pride on the better angels of our nature.

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