Better Days Has A Compelling Story, But It’s Hard To Watch.
MOVIE REVIEWS, DRAMA, CRIME, ROMANCE
Directed by Derek Tsang and written by Lam Wing Sum, Li Yuan and Xu Yimeng. It's a crime, drama, and romance film. Length time 2 hours and 15 minutes. Based on the young adult novel called, In His Youth, In Her Beauty by Jiu Yuexi.
This Chinese film was released Oct. 25th, 2019 and made almost $230 million dollars. I won't go into too much spoilers, because I think everyone should watch this movie, because it has such a powerful message, beautiful imagery, and the acting is phenomenal.
It starts off with a young female student committing suicide as she climbs on the railings and jumps off. She was bullied by a group of rich, elite girls who are all from prominent families.
This is before the final exams in China. A day where millions of college age students take this huge exam to determine their job status and social class. Chen Nian soon becomes the next victim of these school bullies, especially one head girl (or boss) of this group named Wei Lai. The names of the other girls really don't matter; just these two main girls.
Chen Nian is poor and her mother is never at home, working long hours in the dead of night at her job. Chen Nian walks home one night and sees a bunch of drunk thugs, picking on a man named Xiao Bei. The men beat Bei up and Chen tries to call the police, but these thugs stop her. They instead force her and Bei to kiss as some kind of humiliation ritual.
As the police investigate the death of the female student, the group of bullies get suspended from school. However, since Chen was a close friend of the deceased girl the bullies start blaming her for all their troubles. In a desperate effort to get them off her back, Chen asks Bei to intimidate and threaten her bullies so she can study for her exams. The final exam means everything to Chen and she even states that she doesn't want the same life as her mother.
Bei agrees to Chen's contract and her terms of conditions, stalking her everyday while harassing the bullies nonstop, so they would leave her alone to focus on homework. No one knows his real identity, because he wears a hoodie and hides his face from view of the cameras in the streets. However, as the days and weeks go on… he soon develops deep feelings for Chen.
Chen also starts falling for Bei and their bond gets closer as the final days for the last exam gets near. However, something in their plans goes horribly wrong as the police soon gets involved, since the bullies report Bei for assault and sexual harassment, etc. In the end, both their fates are predetermined once they make a fatal decision that changes their entire lives.
This movie was incredibly shot and I love the cinematography. The acting is superb and I thought these two actors were just perfect in their roles. It shows a bleak world in which these students have to pass this big, final exam that will determine their entire social status. Little do these adults in the film know about the actual abuse these victims go through, and they don't seem intent on actually fixing these problems at all.
Some of them completely ignore it. Even the police agents are completely oblivious about the brutal and mental torture these kids go through, even physical assault. It shows the reality of two very different worlds; the rich and the poor.
How social status is everything to these students and how people, who have nothing, are treated less than humans. Living in China if you’re a wealthy class citizen, you can get anything you want and that many of these elites can do anything, even cheating the system, without facing real world consequences.
This movie is hard to watch at times, but it focuses on topics that needed to be exposed. Even though its fiction, it tells an important issue about the severe bullying in these universities. In the end, I think this movie should have gotten an award for such an outstanding plot and story. I love this movie so much.
It’s a heartbreaking film that will make you cry at times, but one that needed to be told. It reminds me of another movie, which is very difficult to watch and based off a true story called, Silenced Do-ga-ni (2011).
Silenced is at the same level of this film, focusing on themes that are highly controversial and not a film people can easily watch. I don't know if I'll review it one day, but we shall see how that goes... small baby steps on that one. :/
Overall, my score on Better Days is an A+.