Outside of a few highlights, it’s been unfortunately a rather weak year when it comes to the field of animation. However, 2018 is getting off to a more promising as January will bring the U.S. release of one of our favorites from this year’s Berlinale, Lu Jian’s neo-noir animation, independently produced in China. Strand Releasing has now debuted an official trailer, showing off the slick, distinct style and the story of a stolen bag of money.
“Liu Jian’s Have a Nice Day won’t be mistaken for anything less than an utterly contemporary piece of Chinese filmmaking but, as the title might tell you, it’s also a film seeped in 1990s American pop culture,” we said in our review. “Channeling the Coens, Quentin Tarantino, and Cormac McCarthy, Jian’s film has the swagger, dedication to homage, and effortless cool of that decade’s cinema but with plenty of things to say about present-day China. The story revolves around a very McCarthy-esque setup: a bag of money has been stolen for decent reasons by an apparently otherwise decent guy and — as tend to be the case in McCarthy’s novels — a selection of somewhat less-decent people (each with their own motive) end up hunting him down.”
See the trailer below.
A hard rain is about to fall on a small town in Southern China.
In a desperate attempt to find money to save his fiancée’s failed plastic surgery, Xiao Zhang, a humble driver, steals a bag containing 1 million Yuan from his boss.
News of the robbery spreads fast within the town and, over the course of one night, everyone starts looking for Xiao Zhang and his money…
Have a Nice Day opens on January 26.