Metrograph

Mercilessly bullied at school and buckling under the pressure of studying for her college entrance exams, Chen Nian finds refuge in the arms of teen hoodlum Xiao Bei in Tsang’s tough and tender melodrama, a critical darling and sleeper hit in China on its release, featuring Zhou Dongyu and pop star-turned-actor Jackson Yee as its central star-crossed lovers, both giving performances of raw-edged vulnerability and absolute emotional fidelity. Unflinching in its depiction of the cruelty of the schoolyard—an extension, implicitly, of the mercilessly competitive society the classroom prepares students for—and extraordinarily delicate in its handling of illicit young romance, Better Days, combining elements of a noirish thriller and coming of age tale, is a film of lightly worn technical virtuosity and genuine moral urgency.

Distributor: Well Go USA