Happy Times, aka Xingfu Shiguang
By Briana Berg

China, 2000. Directed by Zhang Yimou, written by Gui Zi. Starring Zhao Benshan, Dong Jie, Li Xuejian. Produced by Edward R. Pressman, Terrence Malick, Wang Wei. In Mandarin with English subtitles, 106 minutes, rated PG. Sony Pictures Classics.

If Happy Times were Japanese, it would be a haiku: a poem springing from a few words about ordinary things. But Zhang Yimou's latest film, with its joyous blend of good old common sense, nonsense and circumlocutory versions of the truth, is unquestionably Chinese. Loosely based on Mo Yan's eloquently entitled work, "Shifu, You'll do Anything for a Laugh", Happy Times is set in contemporary China. This bittersweet comedy wraps witty situations, goofy characters, and feelings of love, longing, compassion and sorrow into one poetic, highly commendable package -good therapy for moviegoers weary of the meaningless comedic clunkers that are continually being thrown their way.

Renowned Chinese actor Zhao Benshan plays Zhao, a 50 year-old, unemployed bachelor with a compulsion to arrange the truth. An energetic optimist, Zhao is constantly using his vivid imagination to turn reality to his advantage, making up hilarious, farfetched schemes as he goes along. Zhao is convinced that the solution to all his problems is getting married, if possible to a fat woman, whom he declares to be of a kinder, warmer sort. Thus the film opens with the wedding barter between a lovesick Zhao, posing as a wealthy hotel owner, and his gargantuan potential fiancée (Dong Lihua). To raise the money for the expensive wedding his future spouse has requested, he enlists the help of his friend Li (Li Xuejian), a more reasonable but also quite creative mind. Together they come up with the idea of converting an abandoned bus into the profitable "Happy Times Hotel", a nest for lovebirds. But this moneymaking scheme quickly falls apart. Zhao is left dealing not only with his betrothed, but also with the blind stepdaughter she is trying to get rid of, Wu Ying (Dong Jie), left behind when her father moved out. Struggling to make his fabrications hold up to his future wife and to the blind 18-year-old he has compassionately taken in, Zhao launches into his most sophisticated masquerade yet. With the help of a bunch of laid-off friends, he turns a deserted warehouse into a massage parlor in which Wu can work. The tenuous bond between Zhao and Wu grows stronger, until everything comes tumbling down: Wu discovers the charade and Zhao's overweight fiancée drops him like a hot potato for a richer wedding candidate.

A shot at a society that values marriage as a goal in itself, Happy Times is fundamentally about happiness. Through his choice of images and dialogue, Zhang raises the question of happiness and makes this feeling tangible for the viewer without heavily underlining it. Some images are as delicate and nuanced as a poem; others are amazingly dynamic, like Zhao energetically bicycling through the streets towards his future life, a bouquet of self-made pseudo-roses in his hand.
Zhao is the comic core of Happy Times. His nature compels him to put all his energy into arranging the reality around him, which results in comical situations. In one such scene, Zhao, still trying to figure out how he will make Wu believe that a bus is a hotel, brings her to work at the 'Happy Times Hotel' just in time to see a crane lift the aforementioned vehicle up and away. He tries to reason with the workers while keeping up the pretense in front of a recalcitrant Wu, who cannot see but has no trouble with her hearing -or her brains. The many humorous details make Happy Times endearing, down to the looks on the workers' faces as an embarrassed Zhao starts shouting fake orders at them in order to maintain the sham in front of Wu, before running after her. Zhang never overstates these moments; he doesn't pile up one laugh after the other, which would be overbearing.

He never lets things become gushy, either. Zhang is very good at blending comic and moving moments, as when Zhao returns to the tiny apartment lent to Wu, having pretended he has left for a more fancy home when in fact he has nowhere else to go to. But instead of sleeping, she is wandering around; they come just a few inches apart as she moves forward with her arms stretched out while he's trying to retreat, resembling two birds in a strange dance. In this situation, they both have a handicap, Wu being blind and Zhao having to walk backwards in the dark without making noise. Seeing him curled up the next morning on his tiny balcony is evocative of both his kindness and his schemes' side effects. While his tales are mainly self-serving, they are also well intended. Zhao is a caring person, but seems hopelessly unaware of the repercussions his fibs can have on others. Wu, on the other hand, is very perceptive and grounded in reality. She provides a stabilizing -and moving- counterpart to Zhao, and it almost seems as if the pair takes turns being the grown-up.

A character-driven film, Happy Times is fuelled by emotions. Zhang not only elicits these wonderfully from his performers, but also captures their expression very well. Zhao Benshan is excellent as a gentle but obsessed dreamer fibbing his way through life in pursuit of his dreams, always landing back on his feet like a cat endowed with 9 lives. Dong Jie, a newcomer to cinema, gives an amazing performance as Wu. She instills her blind Cinderella-like persona -a character that could easily become stereotyped- with a balance of frailty, innocence and harsh willpower that make Wu utterly believable.

As Happy Times works its way to bleaker prospects, reality catches up with Zhao instead of him catching up with his dreams. Happy times do not always spring from the expected sources, Zhang seems to suggest. To put it poetically, but not in haiku-style, happy times reside within the creation of the dream rather than in its fulfillment.

Published in indieVision, Summer 2002, Premiere issue, p.43.