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Excellent, Without a doubt!!

A lot of fun.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Being a fan of Asian cinema, I decided to give this movie a go, so I purchased it from Amazon, and having just seen it, I can honestly say that I think something is missing from this movie. It is a great movie, but there is just something missing to make it that one notch more memorable. And I must admit that I had expected the movie to be more of a comedy than a drama about life.**Warning! The following part here contains spoiler to the ending of the movie.**Perhaps it was the semi-lousy ending to the movie. After all of Zhao's (played by Benshan Zhao) effort to give Wu Ying (played by Jie Dong) a purpose in life and make her life meaningful, he ends up in a hospital, and we don't get to know his fate? That was not very satisfactory to me. However, I will say that seeing Wu Ying on the street alone walking off at the end was just beautiful. It was nice to see that she was determined to make an effort and try on her own.The story itself was nice, Zhao is courting a woman (played by Qibin Leng) and ends up having to take care of her blind girl. But with little means and nothing real to offer, Zhao is put to the test. A test of the heart, so to speak.I found the acting in "Happy Times Hotel" to be quite good, and most memorable was Jie Dong. She portrayed the blind girl, Wu Ying, so nicely and so believable."Happy Times Hotel" is a great movie, a beautiful movie, just a shame that it started to fall apart towards the end. The movie could have been so much more if the director (Yimou Zhang) had opted to go a different direction. I felt that us viewers were left with so many unanswered questions to the story, and that was a shame, because it made the movie feel incomplete. But still, given the great story, then this movie is well worth checking out.

Zhang Yimou is easily the most interesting director in mainland China (he has some competition from Taiwan). "Happy Times" is once again a film that tacitly criticizes China's unprecedented stride into free market economics by depicting the lives of people who are left behind, or who can't find their way. The blind girl Wu is surely a metaphor for China itself, as the end credits make almost explicitly clear - she is followed by the camera as she walks precariously through the crowded city, with construction sites looming ominously in the background. The true stupidity of Roger Ebert is apparent from his dismissal of the film as a crude joke - a blind girl deceived into believing she is a masseuse in the Happy Times Hotel by the well-meaning "manager" Zhao and his reluctant cronies. But Wu is aware of the deception from the beginning, and even knows the bits of paper they give her aren't real money. Yet she goes along with the masquerade because she realizes to what lengths Zhao has gone to for her. That Ebert missed this nuance is typical of him. The true humor of the film lies in Wu's not being taken in by the deception, yet going along with it anyway - the deceivers satisfied she doesn't know, the deceived satisfied that she does. The final minutes of the film, with the tape-recorded voice of Wu expressing her love and thanks to Zhao (who is unable to listen) are bittersweet and captivatingly lovely.

This is one of the most touching films I've ever seen. I actually don't think I can find the words in English to describe how wonderfully director Zhang Yimou seems to understand the finer points of human emotions. I was absolutely touched with Happy Times, and consequently sought out his work, "The Road Home", which I found was equally excellent.I wanted to wait to write a review of this film until I felt I could compose something fitting, but realized for me, the comments must come from the heart. In short, I'd rather skip any attempt to summarize the film or intellectually categorize it into some literal form that doesn't really fit. It is slowly immersing into unselfish love for another, while relating a sense of light comedy. My recommendation is that you try to see it on IFC or one of the other Independent film channels when it's available.On Golden Pond is the only American film I can think of that evokes the same level of emotion provoked by Zhang Yimou.

Zhao is a 50 year old unemployed loser making one last attempt at finding love. He courts a portly divorcee, but keeps having to lie to pass himself off as a better catch than he really is. Eventually, of course, the lies backfire. Zhao tells his sweetheart that he is the manager of a fancy hotel. She responds by foisting her blind stepdaughter off on him, confident that he can easily find her employment at his fancy hotel.What follows is a funny, unlikely and touching relationship between Zhao and the blind girl Wu. While Zhao is terribly misguided, constructing elaborate deceptions to keep Wu "employed" at the non-existent hotel, he does these wrong things for the right reasons. Zhao does find love, but it isn't the woman or the love he expected.This is an excellent film and there are three big reasons why: First of all, it's directed by Zhang Yimou who may well be the best director alive. This isn't a masterpiece like "Raise the Red Lantern," but seeing the phrase "Directed by Zhang Yimou" should be enough to tell you the next two hours will be well spent.The second and third reasons are Benshan Zhao as Zhao and Jei Dong as Wu. Zhao is a respected Chinese comedian, but the role here is really a mixture of comedy and drama. Zhao gives the mixture exactly the right touch. But the real revelation is Jei Dong. I found myself wondering through the entire movie if she were really blind. She is that good. (And I still don't know the answer.)Don't expect a laugh out loud comedy if you see this movie. It is very funny in places, but frequently that humor is very uncomfortable. And frequently happy times aren't really what they seem.