Amazon.com: A beautifully heart-wrenching movie. Zhao, a middle-aged laid-off factory worker, longs for a wife; in the hopes of marrying a pushy divorcée, he agrees to pay for an expensive wedding. To raise money, he turns a derelict bus into a place for couples to rendezvous, and brags to his fiancee about how he manages the Happy Times Hotel. When the divorcée insists that Zhao give Ying, her blind stepdaughter, a job at the hotel as a masseuse, he convinces his friends to help him concoct a fake massage parlor where the girl can work. Happy Times begins as a delightful light comedy, but as the relationship between Zhao and Ying grows, this deceptively simple movie flows effortlessly back and forth from sweetness to sorrow, culminating in a devastatingly moving ending. --Bret Fetzer
A little slow-moving, but many wonderful moments!! I actually liked this movie a lot overall, but other people that were watching it with me felt that it was very slow-moving. It is definitely worth watching, with wonderful moments of beautiful film-making. Sometimes it is very entertaining, but I do agree with my friends that there are too many passages in the movie that "drift along". It is not a movie I would necessarily watch again and again, but I would still recommend it to anyone to watch at least once! (That is, if you are not an impatient person...)
Jie Dong is simply outstanding ... CBC ran this in the middle of the night, and I did not know the story but the girl in it conveyed such feeling. I bought the DVD and just watched it tonight.
What a wonderful story. I am glad to see so many great reviews online at Amazon -- when I searched the web there was very little "reliable" reviews.
It deserves 5 stars for the performance of Jie Dong lone. Her expressions in every scene is heart breaking.
I highly recommend this movie.
Laugh and cry. This is one of my favorite Zhang Yimou films. There are rumors that Zhang has sold out, doing a government film for the Olympics, making martial arts films for Hollywood. We'll see. I think he has been one of the best people to tell the story of the common Chinese. His earlier works (The Road Home, Not one Less, Judou, etc) tell of rural life. This is about urban life. What makes this movie great is that it doesn't use recognizable face people as actors. Also, there are no special effects. For me this made it easier to become very emotionally involved with the quirky story of some quirky people. Sometimes it was hilarious, sometimes sad. If you like typical Hollywood movies that have predictable endings, the usual villains, are preachy and pander to "basic instincts" such as sex and violence this probably isn't your cup of tea. For me it was real and believable.
The one drawback I felt was that it doesn't really give a good feel for what a modern Chinese city is like. I currently live in Guangzhou (Canton). Although there is nothing especially false about the portrayal of a Chinese megalopolis I felt the flavor of life was missing. The crowding is so great I often feel that most of the 20 million residents actually live in my building, making noise, throwing garbage around, smoking inconsiderately, and driving like - well, as if only emperors owned cars and the lives of pedestrians were meaningless in the scheme of things. When so many people live in such close proximity things aren't the same as in the West. In fairness that isn't what this movie is about, yet it is one of the main reasons I like Zhang's films; getting an idea of what Chinese life is like.
This is one of the few movies I've watched more than once.
BEST MOVIE EVER!!! I am not really 13. In fact...I am 16, and completely entranced by the essence of this movie! I was totally flabbergasted once the movie started! There wasn't huge bombs exploding or people doing crazy "Matrix" moves, but for some non-apparent reason, I couldn't take my eyes off the screen. I was caught, Hook, line and sinker by the the first half hour! The poor girl seemed like a rebel at first, but after you learn her story you change from judgemental to compassionate! This is a definite must see movie! I would reccomend it to a 90 year old man and to a 7 year old girl. The lessons and knowledge shared is enough to influence anyone and to leave an impression that will not be easily forgotten.
Yimou's best. I really don't care for some of Yimou Zang's films that other people seem to love. Hero and House of the Flying Daggers are really great visual masterpieces, but to me they seem rather silly and unrealistic on many levels (not just technical).
However, I really love his other films dealing with ordinary people in realistic settings. Among them, Happy Times is by far the best.
This movie's central theme is about one person lying to another to bring him/her joy and meaning in existence. It is the act of deception that somehow gets turned into a great expression of love. That is an amazing thing to capture.
The actors are just perfect, especially the two leads. The girl playing the blind actress made the best performance I've seen ever.
If you like this movie, check out Shanghai Triad and Keep Cool.
Anything Goes Trivia
Trevor
Megaton Man
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