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Better Days Movie Review

Better Days is a 2020 Hong Kong film directed by Derek Tsang and starring Zhou Dongyu and Jackson Yee. It’s such a mediocre, frustrating movie for multiple reasons.

A bullied high school student and a small-time criminal become the prime suspects in the murder of a teenage girl who turns out to be the student’s nemesis for the state Gaokao exam. None of this movie worked for me, except the acting, which is obviously very good. Zhou Doungyu and Jackson Yee are huge stars in their home country and you can instantly see the star appeal of both of them as they have that movie look and both are capable actors.

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But I strongly disliked their characters and the movie was simply too Chinese for me. This is the typical type of Asian cinema that focuses on a very emotional romance, and there is a big market there for this kind of stuff, but I personally don’t care for romances, especially when they are put in such an unlikely scenario.

That is why this movie is so typically Asian – they just love romances set in a dark background populated with troubled teens, but I really dislike the mixing of crime and romantic elements in this film as I couldn’t take it seriously as a crime drama because of the romance, and I couldn’t enjoy the romance because of the forgettable crime elements. So, the film tried to operate in both of these lanes, but it failed hard in either one of them.

For such a long runtime, you would think that Better Days has something to say, but you would be sorely mistaken. We do not get any themes here whatsoever nor do we ever get a message. The movie just focuses on these two characters for the most part and although some of the moments are memorable and quite cinematic with the technical aspects overall being solid, the dialogue is far from great, the script is an utter mess and the film is overlong, uninvolving and simply not good. The fact that it took the spot for numerous better foreign movies in that Oscar category is especially infuriating.

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Better Days is a very mediocre, frustrating movie. Zhou Dongyu and Jackson Yee are movie stars, both capable and memorable as actors. The movie is technically strong, cinematic and sometimes memorable. However, none of it worked plotwise. It tries to mix crime with romance elements, but it failed miserably in both of those lanes with the crime storyline being flat and the romance being simply way too Asian. The fact that this movie stole the spot from numerous better foreign movies in the foreign Oscar category is especially infuriating.

My Rating – 2.5