VOD Review - Better Days

Nominated for Best International Feature at the 93rd Academy Awards, it's the official submission from Hong Kong. Of all the films in this category, this film has been the most successful in terms of box office. It had the fortune of being released prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. It earned over $225 million worldwide, which is more than what all the films nominated for Best Picture at this year's Oscars made combined. One of the reasons for the film doing so well, considering it's not an action or horror flick, is due to its two actors being ranked very high commercially. The male lead is in fact a pop star who has had a lot of hit records and songs in China. Both he and the female lead are top Chinese celebrities, according to Forbes magazine.

Based on a YA novel, this film focuses on teenagers on the verge of graduating and going to college. It's about the pressures that young people face to succeed and not disappoint the adults around them. It's about how those pressures can then manifest in interpersonal ways that can be destructive. It felt analogous to the recent, American series 13 Reasons Why (2017). This film is somewhat about deconstructing the causes or possible causes of teenage depression. This film also has a suicide as its inciting incident just as 13 Reasons Why had. There isn't much exploration here. Director Derek Tsang really hammers that it all comes down to the college entrance exam, as this film seems to indict the push or drive for educational excellence, which also feels like a cultural push that's more prominent in China or Asian countries in general.

Zhou Dongyu stars as Chen Nian, a teenage girl in her last year of schooling before she goes to university in 2011. She's preparing to take the national college entrance exam, which is 60 days away. However, her college prep is marred when her best friend commits suicide. It's revealed that other teenage girls were bullying her friend. Why they were bullying her is never explained or explored, but because Chen Nian was her friend, she then becomes the target of presumably the same bullies who targeted her friend. She also seems to be a target because of some issue or scandal involving her mother.

Jackson Yee co-stars as Liu Beishan, a teenage boy who might be older than her. He lives on his own in a veritable shack. It's basically a one-room, run-down apartment where he lives by himself. He doesn't seem to have a lot or much of any money. He survives by being part of a gang or involved with a gangster where he has to perform petty crimes. Yet, it's underlined that he's not a drug dealer. He's a self-described punk or thug. He has a moped that he uses to get around, but he seems like he's in debt to his gangster and has no hope of getting out of his financial hole.

However, Beishan meets Nian when other thugs beat him up one night out in the open on the street where Nian is walking home. She does what she can to help him and both make a connection that is tentative at first but as one might guess evolves into an unbreakable bond and true love story. Because Nian's bullying gets worse, Beishan becomes her protector or bodyguard. The film then becomes about how far Beishan will go to maintain that role.

Fang Yin plays Officer Zheng, a police detective who investigates the suicide at the school and the subsequent reports of bullying. The film focuses on him in ways that don't become clear until half-way through or more. Namely, Zheng becomes involved in a murder case that is connected to a person at the school. Obviously, a murder is the kind of escalation that is the fear of bullying in school or anywhere, but the mechanics of how that murder mystery are handled feel like unnecessary mechanics that detract from whatever point the film was making in the first half.

Rated PG for bullying and some violence.
Running Time: 2 hrs. and 16 mins.

Available on Hulu.