Year: 2019 Not Rated Genre: Book-to-Movie, Bullying, High School, Romance, Teen, Thriller Language: Chinese (Mandarin) Runtime: 2:15:00 Director: 曾国祥 (Derek Tsang) ★ Main Cast: 周冬雨 (Zhou Dong Yu) ★, 易烊千玺 (Jackson Yee) ☆★, 尹昉(Yi Fang), 周也 (Zhou Ye)
Notable Mentions: Zhou Dong Yu as Chen Nian
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I found out about this film when it was nominated for Best International Feature Film at the 93rd Oscars. At that time, I've only seen the film poster. I was like, is this an affirmative action nomination? Chinese films went through a teenage love story set in a high school phase. All those movies are the same. Given the movie poster, I assumed this film was the same too. I judged a book by its cover. The Oscars was under a lot of scrutiny at the time for lack of diversity. I thought they must've nominated this film to shut up the critics. Infernal Affairs, one of the greatest Chinese films of all time, didn't even get nominated for an Oscar. This can't be better than Infernal Affairs. No way.
It wasn't better than Infernal Affairs. Nevertheless, Better Days held its own.
Not long ago, I finally watched the film. I stood corrected. The movie centered around an uncommon theme, bullying. Some parts of the film were hard to stomach, especially for those who's been victims of bullying. I paused frequently while watching the film. I didn't want to watch the bullying scenes. To watch the bullying is to experience the bullying alongside the protagonist. And that was hard.
Zhou Dong Yu is the Chinese Saoirse Ronan. The girl is a star. She is a stable. She is consistent, effortlessly good at what she does, just like Saoirse. I do prefer Zhou Dong Yu's performance in the first half of the film over the second half. All in all, she outshined her co-stars. They were no match for Zhou Dong Yu.
There is this scene in the film. They showed shots of body parts of a corpse. Next, they showed a shot of Chen Nian, the protagonist played by Zhou Dong Yu, sitting in a classroom. Her head turned slightly to the left, like how you would turn if you were walking home alone in the dark and suspected someone was following you. A slight turn enough to get a feel if someone is behind you, but not too obvious to let the person behind you notice that you've noticed their presence. The next scene showed a distorted Chen Nian sitting in the same classroom through a rain battered window. At that moment, the mood of the film switched from drama to thriller. I wish Derek Tsang, the director, leaned into that more. Make the second half of the film a full blown psychological thriller. That would've made the film really interesting.
