Happy Times

Zhao Benshan and Dong Jie

Zhang Yimou's Happy Times is a comic melodrama first released in China in 2000. The protagonist is an unemployed factory worker named Zhao (Zhao Benshan) who lives in the port city of Dalian. We first meet Zhao as he is courting a zaftig divorcee (Lifan Dong) who lives in a crowded apartment with her corpulent son and a blind stepdaughter, Wu Ying (Dong Jie), who she mistreats. Zhao is posing as a well to do manager of a hotel in order to win the divorcee, but his lies will catch up to him. The divorcee charges him with finding a job and new digs for Wu Ying at his non-existent hotel. Zhao enlists his friends, most of whom are retired, to find a solution. They convert an abandoned bus in a local park into a pad for trysting lovers with the intention of using Wu Ying as a maid to clean up the mess the couples leave.

The love shack, which is dubbed the Happy Times Hut, proves viable for only a short time. Wu Ying's stepmother finds another, genuinely wealthy suitor, but shows no interest in taking Wu Ying back. Zhao has taken an avuncular interest in Wu Ying and she responds to his kindness. Learning that she is a skilled masseuse, Zhao sets up a phony massage parlor for her to "work" in at an abandoned factory. Unbeknownst to Zhao, Wu Ying cottons to what is really going on fairly early. However, she plays along, happy to stay useful and enjoying the company of Zhao's friends who impersonate "clients".

The film was loosely adapted by Gui Zi from short story by Mo Yan. Some critics at the time, like Roger Ebert, found the basic premise of Happy Times to be both manipulative and overly sentimental. However, I think the characters suspension of disbelief concerning the faux massage parlor is designed to reflect that of the audience watching the film. Deception is central to both processes. Zhao is a bounder, but he is essentially good-hearted. The parallels to Chaplin's tramp, always helpful to blind girls, children, and the dispossessed, are fairly obvious. Like the tramp, Zhao's grifts are more amusing than sinister. Both the tramp and Zhao exist in hostile landscapes where a little rebellion is understandable. Zhao exists in a land that features the worst of both worlds: the regimented authoritarianism of state socialism alongside the indifference to the impoverished of capitalism.

Chiefly, I found the film to be a good hang. The rhythm of the film feels pokey at times, but Yimou frames his ensemble scenes well, enabling the audience to gauge various characters' reaction simultaneously. Yimou also utilizes color imaginatively, particularly red as a harbinger of romantic hope. The two leads are both wondrous, engaging our empathy without grandstanding. What is most remarkable is how the film never tips over into bathos despite an ending the verges on tragedy.