Have A Nice Day

Have a Nice Day is a neo-noir feature length 2018 film out of China.  The animation much like a well done graphic novel, takes to the screen much in the same sort of appearance.  A hard rain is about to fall on a small town in southern agriculture based town of China.  Xiao Zhang, a driver, is in a huff to find a way to raise money to help fix the botched plastic surgery job of his girlfriend.  As a result, he steals roughly 1 million RMB from his boss, and shortly after, most of the small town hears of the shakedown.  A cast of about 10 other townies then search out Xiao and the money before the skies open.

I thought the animation was well done and not your typical approach to animated features.  It was the classic neo-noir, almost Gotham-esque but southern China.  Having lived in a small southern Chinese town, southwest of Shanghai, I could appreciate the despair of the town.  The farmers, resturant hole in the walls, the general public all up in your kool-aid, the question of authenticity of money paid by outsiders, the odd fascination with internet cafe's.  I'm sure that it'd be a stretch of culturalisims for some, but overall for film and thriller buffs, it'd be a good film to check out.

The characters seemed to be right out of a noir graphic novel, and not developed as much as I would have liked.  I would have enjoyed more of semblance and development for some, and felt some characters could have been omitted. Much of the movie has the makings of a good thriller: creepy non-descript man in black hunting down the crime plot, multiple people trying to thwart the bad guy while not being the best people either, rising tension, and funky plot twists.  The plot twists for Have a Nice Day ranged from small, to colliding cars at different points.  Not quite the classic Hitchcock, but sort of a mild sleeper of Batman, without the Batman.

The overall length, 77 minutes seemed about right for the story-line, but could have used some heavier editing towards the end.  There was a nice play on time warps, time perceptions, and plays on space.  I enjoyed many of the sweeping shots, and oddball sleeping workers, which made me wistful for days spent wandering down Chinese alleys.  This is Liu Jian's first feature film, and I'd be curious to see what he develops in years to come.