Have A Nice Day

Have a Nice Day (Hao Jile) (2017)

Runtime: 74 minutes

Directed by: Jian Liu

Starring: A bunch of random Chinese people voicing this animated feature

From: Several Chinese Studios

Last night on Shudder I only had a small window to view something so I chose a motion picture 74 minutes long. As I imagine most would say, independent Chinese animation is a topic I know precious little about; from hearsay I understand that director Jian Liu has been in this field for a long while now. The plot description sounded rather adult so I went and pressed play; before anyone asks, this is not a biography of Mick Foley or has anything to do with him.

The plot is a Tarantino sort of riff: a low-level criminal-a driver, to be exact-steals a lot of money from a crime lord for intentions that he believes are good, and now multiple people are looking both for him & the cash. There is a rather gruesome and OOT final 20 minutes or so and a moment or two of inspiration (especially a scene which actually combined karaoke with propaganda)... like with QT, there is plenty of dialogue. Regrettably with this film, I couldn't be made to care about most of the characters. Henceforth, that along with the slow as molasses pacing meant that too much of this just seemed to drag, which is an issue especially when you factor in its short length.

In addition, the animation doesn't look bad per se... to steal a phrase from a mutual here, “it is one step above Adult Swim”; that in itself is not a crime... although unfortunately the facial expressions aren't exactly that expressive, which did not help matters. All that said, I can still give this an OK rating, and I know there are others who rate this quite a bit higher. Me not loving everything that Tarantino has ever done might play into my opinions on this effort.