HAVE A NICE DAY (HAO JI LE) New Auteurs

Banned by the Chinese government from screening at the world’s most prestigious animation festival in Annecy, France, HAVE A NICE DAY is a morbid, hilarious noir that cuts deep into the greed fueling the Chinese economic miracle. Security guard Xiao Zhang steals a bag of money from a gangster to pay for a trip to South Korea that will fix his fiancée’s botched plastic surgery, precipitating a scramble over the loot that has bloody consequences for a lot of people. Director Liu Jian’s dilapidated industrial backgrounds and eccentric character design support the sharp dialogue with evocative visuals, and it will take all of your self-control not to get up and dance to the Shanghai Restoration Project’s synth-pop score. Just try to resist the social-realist karaoke video. – Gillian Horvat