Happy Times (2002) Critic Reviews

A wise, gentle and sad new comedy by Zhang Yimou.Read the full review

This is a film that goes its own way to the end as it asks the audience, "What you just saw, were they happy times or not?" The question is a good one, and the answer, like this film, is sure to stay with you.Read the full review

Shares many things with ''Not One Less'' and ''The Road Home,'' among them a grass-roots sensibility that ultimately puts a premium on hope and simple kindnesses, while acknowledging the seductive power of money and superficial success.Read the full review

Walks a sometimes-shaky line between tenderness and schmaltz.Read the full review

Had O. Henry set his stories in China, he might have come up with Happy Times, a comedy for which the adjective ''bittersweet'' could have been invented.Read the full review

A tender, tragic allegory in which grave human emotions play out against a small, simple backdrop.Read the full review

Crude as its build-up may be, the movie pays off with unexpected delicacy.Read the full review

If I found it creepy beyond all reason, that is no doubt because I have been hopelessly corrupted by the decadent society I inhabit.Read the full review

Happy Times doesn't buck the clichés so much as infuse them with feeling, playing off the pleasant, unforced rhythm of two characters who pine for simple companionship.Read the full review