HAVE A NICE DAY

China, 2017, 77 minutes, Colour.
Directed Jian Liu.

Have a Nice Day is an animation film from China. The animation is arresting, detail in the drawing of the backgrounds, the range of expression in the characters, the dramatic and melodramatic situations – and the violence.

Had this film been a live action drama, it would have been fairly commonplace, a picture of stolen money, gangsters, hitmen… And one of the characters remarks that he has watched the Godfather films several times. But, course this is animation, audiences will look at it more carefully, making the comparisons with the live-action, seeing how the range of gangster and criminal characters are drawn, the shape of their faces, the suggestions of the sinister, their violent expressions.

The film concerns a bag of money and two men riding in a car, allies, but one taking the money from the other, desperate to have money so that he can finance an operation for a loved one in South Korea. The boss is not pleased and hires a hitman to retrieve the money, not always effective in his pursuit. There is a hideout in the hotel which has seen better days.

There are complications in the action, the pursuit, violence, the capture of the money eluding those pursuing it, with a tongue in cheek ending and some prospects for progress.