Have a Nice Day (Hao Ji Le)
Some of the best movies are the ones that feel
familiar while telling new stories. Goodfellas
is thoroughly distinct from any other mafia film but by including familiar
themes about “made men”, it allows us to approach the film from a feeling of
familiarity. Revionist Westerns also set new interpretations of stories within
a familiar setting. And, of course, it’s even possible to take a fairly similar
story and place it within an entirely new landscape (such as Avatar).
Have
a Nice Day is one of those films that seem as though
you’ve seen it before and also, remains like nothing you’ve ever seen before.
With a storyline that seems to have been heavily influenced by Tarantino (Reservoir Dogs, in particular) and an
animated style that brings to mind Waltz
with Bashir, this is a movie that certainly springs out of familiar territory.
But influences are only tangential, and the final product is wholly original.
It’s a film set in a bleak industrial town, dominated
by construction and factories where the only sparks of light are flashing store
signs and headlights. The characters move into the film with breakneck speed,
all seemingly united by their lack of money or lack of happiness. In summary,
it’s a crime film about a stolen bag of money that keeps changing ownership.
But, it’s not exactly that straightforward of a film. With characters such as a
technology-obsessed hitman who wants to use the money to start a business as an
inventor to a driver who wants to take his girlfriend for plastic surgery in Korea,
it’s as interesting to hear why the characters want the money as much as to see
them try to get it.
The film also has some pretty unusual departures from
the standard storyline that’d be expected; with a musical piece about going to
Shangri-La stuck into the middle of the film and frequent philosophical
discussions about entrepreneurship and freedom by side-characters who barely enter
the film’s main story.
Bleak and extremely violent, this world of small-town China
that’s depicted is bleak and seems to be a place that everyone wants to get
away from. In that sense, it’s a bit like the films of Jia Zhangke but a lot more brutal in its depiction. Needless to
say, I’m surprised it got past the censor board in China but I’m pretty happy
it did as it’s one of the most interesting things I’ve seen in a while.
To make it even more impressive, director Liu Jiang
did almost the entire film himself over the space of three years.
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