Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

The biggest problem with this movie is it’s a little better than you think it might be, which somehow makes it worse. As in, it takes itself a bit too seriously, which makes most of the movie feel kind of dull.

If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

Being a fan of Asian cinema, I decided to give this movie a go, so I purchased it from Amazon, and having just seen it, I can honestly say that I think something is missing from this movie. It is a great movie, but there is just something missing to make it that one notch more memorable. And I must admit that I had expected the movie to be more of a comedy than a drama about life.**Warning! The following part here contains spoiler to the ending of the movie.**Perhaps it was the semi-lousy ending to the movie. After all of Zhao's (played by Benshan Zhao) effort to give Wu Ying (played by Jie Dong) a purpose in life and make her life meaningful, he ends up in a hospital, and we don't get to know his fate? That was not very satisfactory to me. However, I will say that seeing Wu Ying on the street alone walking off at the end was just beautiful. It was nice to see that she was determined to make an effort and try on her own.The story itself was nice, Zhao is courting a woman (played by Qibin Leng) and ends up having to take care of her blind girl. But with little means and nothing real to offer, Zhao is put to the test. A test of the heart, so to speak.I found the acting in "Happy Times Hotel" to be quite good, and most memorable was Jie Dong. She portrayed the blind girl, Wu Ying, so nicely and so believable."Happy Times Hotel" is a great movie, a beautiful movie, just a shame that it started to fall apart towards the end. The movie could have been so much more if the director (Yimou Zhang) had opted to go a different direction. I felt that us viewers were left with so many unanswered questions to the story, and that was a shame, because it made the movie feel incomplete. But still, given the great story, then this movie is well worth checking out.

After China opened itself to the world in 1980, and especially after Tiananmen, it began a huge process of modernization to fuel the potential for its economic growth; however, everyone was not involved in this whirlwind of development. While many younger entrepreneurs were able to take advantage of the massive changes, many older individuals who were steeped within the system of government subsidized businesses and depended on the "iron rice bowl" for housing and food were left out in the cold. A group of these individuals make up the core characters of Zhang Yimou's 2000 film Happy Times.Noted for films such as The Road Home and Red Sorghum which show off the beauties of the Chinese countryside, Zhang Yimou also created films such as Not One Less and The Story of Qiu Ju which display the clash between the urban and the rural. However, Happy Times is different because it focuses entirely on the urban and the displacement some individuals can feel when their homes go through rapid changes.Old Zhao seems like a decent enough fellow. He is friendly and humorous, but has yet to get married. However, with the appearance of Chunky Mama in his life it seems that maybe he will finally get married, it is the 18th time that he has attempted to do so. The problem is that Chunky Mama desires an expensive wedding that would cost Zhao 50,000 Yuan or so: an amount of money that is quite out of his reach. However, determined to marry Chunky Mama he goes to his friend Fu for help and they establish the Happy Times Hut which is nothing more than a broken down bus where young couples can make out. Being a chronic liar, Zhao tells Chunky Mama that he is in the hotel business and that he is making lots of money. Believing him, Chunky Mama dumps her unwanted blind stepdaughter Wu Ying onto him. Having no true place for the girl to work, Zhao and his friends build a "massage parlor" for the girl to work at so Zhao can keep his promise to Chunky Mama that he will look after the girl, but for how long can he keep up such a subterfuge? While it was panned by many critics, in my opinion, Happy Times is quite a delightful film. Zhao Benshan is absolutely hilarious and Dong Jie as the blind Wu Ying is magnificent. Full of humor and sadness Happy Times contains some extraordinarily touching moments. A great film for those who enjoy Zhang Yimou's films or Chinese film in general.

This movie carefully set up a lot of comic situations - an old man (Zhao), lost in his own denials of his incompetence, who is infatuated with a fat woman, and blind to the fact that she is a completely selfish money grubber, and in fact is lying left and right to try and impress her, because he has nothing to offer. He tries to make money by setting up a make-out room in an abandoned bus but he is too morally upright to allow the customers to use it. He tries to do a favor for the fat lady by taking her unwanted blind step child (Yu) and giving her a fake job at the bus (the "Happy Times Hotel"). He loses the bus so he makes a fake massage parlor for the blind girl. All of this is very amusing. It is clearly a comedy so far, set in a Cinderella-like story.Maybe it's just the American in me, but at this point, I was expecting two things to happen at some point in the movie: 1. The old man would come to realize what a witch the fat woman was. 2. His charming, scam artistry incompetence would somehow accidentally make their lives better, because, so far, it hasn't really done much for anybody.The fat lady's greed and wanton abuse of her step daughter don't seem to have any effect on Zhao, inexplicably. We would feel for his plight at not getting the favor of the fat lady, except: 1. She isn't worth it, and 2. He seems just as culpable because he ignores the abuse. So, there's no sympathy for any of the characters except for the blind girl.Eventually, of course, we come to feel for Zhao as he comes to start caring for Yu. But he can't support her himself, he's nearly broke as it is. It is amazing that he and his old co-workers can come up with the amazingly complex charade of a massage parlor, yet get stuck with the problem of having to have paying customers for Yu. They just keep going themselves, and making fake money after a while. How does it not occur to any of them to try and get real customers? It would have gone like this - The fake parlor would transform into a real parlor. Wild, unexpected success. Zhao shares in the money, is starting to be well off at last. Shows off to fat lady, dumps her. Massage parlor gets busted (by government?), or they get evicted from the factory, losing everything they gained. Yu confesses to Zhao that she knew what was going on all along, but she was very thankful none-the-less. With some small savings, she sets out into the world and tries to get a real job as a masseuse, which is easier now that she has experience and a good reputation from her disappointed customer base. Zhao is back where he started, but now he is happier because he feels that at last he has done some good in the world. Happy Times.Instead, they continue using fake money. Yu presents a letter for Zhao to read, which is from her father, which hasn't been read to her by her evil step-mom. Zhao reads it, literally. It sucks. She asks if there's more. I totally expected him to make up something nice on the spot, something poignant and meaningful to make her feel better, and realizing that although he's pretending it's from her father, it's really from him. Instead, he fumbles and decides to do that later. Apparently it's so hard for him to access real emotions that he has to work on it. Yu knows her life with him is a sham, so she leaves, leaving him a recording saying how thankful she was. Zhao writes the fake letter from her father, but before he can deliver it, he gets dumped by fat woman, and is so upset that he gets drunk and gets hit by a bus. Neither recording or note makes it to the other. Super duper, huge tragic ending. WTF???? How about: He makes up a nice letter from her father on the spot, at the restaurant. He realizes later that he really meant it, but knows that Yu thinks it's from her father, and is sad to think she doesn't know how he feels. Yu leaves for the big city, but leaves behind a tape: I know that my father didn't write what you said, and that you said it from your own heart. Wow. Beautifully touching ending to a funny movie.It may be that Zhang Yimou can only do tragedies, (which he does exceptionally well), which is a shame, because the first half of the movie was very funny, with the characters and situations. But it got sucked right into pointless tragedy land. This was a most jarring ending to a movie that took a wrong turn somewhere in the middle.My advice is to stop watching it right after the restaurant scene where he reads the letter from her father to her. It just goes straight downhill from there.

The simple story of Happy Times overlays an interesting commentary on China's government, society, and future.The first act of film creates the characters, their relationships, and the overall situation, to set up the political allegory that plays out in the final two acts. The story unfolds that retired/laid-off Old Zhao must take care of the young blind girl, Wu Ying. Through a series of lies, Zhao has put himself in a situation where, although he is retired and poor, Wu Ying believes he owns a successful hotel. He offers to give her a job in the hotel's massage room. (This is not a front for prostitution. In China, "blind man massage" is available in most cities.)He uses the factory where he worked - which is shut down but not yet abandoned - and the help of his former workmates, to create a fake massage room and fake customers. Zhao also provides the money to pay Ying for massages, until the crew hits upon the idea of using fake money.In the old China, the state guaranteed jobs for everyone. The patriarchal and authoritarian government wanted to show off their glorious communist system, and how well it worked (compared to the decadent capitalists, with their unemployment problems). The government could always print more money, to pay these workers.The allegory is clear: Zhao represents the "state" - and its well-intentioned "make work" projects. The pride of Zhao (and his chances with his fiancee) is at stake, and he struggles to maintain the charade. As well, he finds that he cares for and is concerned about his charge, Ying.In the end, two things happen independently: Zhao finds that he cannot sustain the masquerade - he is running out of money and resources (and gets into a situation where it is impossible for him to continue, and, indeed, might put Ying in desperate jeopardy); and Ying, who cottoned on to the charade long ago, decides to take responsibility for herself, and seek her own fortune.In the same way, China's government realized it could not continue along its Maoist path, and its citizens (or at least some of them) were eager to be responsible for themselves, rather than relying on their government. A new path for China's people has opened, with greater responsibility and greater opportunity.The film's ending brings mixed emotions: we are concerned for Ying, who must begin coping with the world with no help (at her own choice, although circumstances would force this choice, anyhow); at the same time, we are optimistic for her future possibilities; and we are sad that the relationship of Zhao and Ying has ended.It is a tribute to director Zhang Yimou, Zhao Benshao (Zhao), and Dong Jie (Wu Ying) that the story and characters are touching, regardless of the underlying allegory. The movie plays well as the delicate and simple story of two people brought together by funny circumstances and human nature.