Mei hao de yi wai (2017) Reviews

• Funnier than the vast majority of sentimental comedies that start by killing their heroines...

  asifahsankhan2017-06-12

  I'm a spot for two personalities with respect (to critic Jay Seaver and) to the film itself, "Beautiful Accident." On the person hand, it's very easy to see this movie taking its premise of a career woman suddenly being placed in the position of a housewife for a week due to a filing mishap in the afterlife and getting entirely too cute with it, and when it ended, I found myself fairly pleased that it hadn't. The flip side of that, though, is that as the movie was playing out, it never quite seemed to manage the clever, weird, or really involving things it might have. It hits a lot of spots that mark a clear path but verges on making them a little too well- considered, and could use a bit of chaos. The lawyer is Lee Yu Ran (Gwei Lun- Mei), who demonstrates her cutthroat nature by intimidating the mother of a teenager who has been attacked her boyfriend. In her mid-thirties and never married, she's going to Germany to study in a few weeks, something that seems highly unlikely when she a truck smashes into her car. But, as Director Lee (Wang Jingchun) points out when she arrives in the "Terminal of Fate", she has arrived early, but so has someone else, who has moved on, so if Yu Ran could take her place for a week (they will update the "settings" for everyone else so as not to notice that Yu Ran still has her own name and face), she can get back to her own life. Of course, the folks at the Terminal didn't mention husband Zhang Tao (Kun Chen) or kids Xing Xing (Nana Ou-yang) and Tian Tian (William Wang Yuan- ye), and that nine-year-old Tian believes aliens have replaced his mother with a clone while she is on a trip to space. Though the filmmakers leave some odd gaps when moving the plot along initially - most everything with the Terminal workers involves them withholding information from Yu Ran so that she'll seem foolish despite it being in their best interests for her to succeed - they prove pretty fair at using the look of the film to set tone quickly. The bits with Yu Ran's real life have a nice background detail like her martial- arts workout clothes being perfectly pressed for each obvious thing like her solitary dinner of rare steak and wine after- ward. The afterlife is, of course, a Gilliam-esquire bureaucracy, although not to pointless excess, and the life into which she is inserted is colourful but a bit faded. Director He Weiting and company are careful with their choices without ever pushing them so far that a viewer sees things as unreal. The most important piece of the puzzle is Gwei Lun-Mei. She doesn't get much of a chance to be at her best in the opening scenes, where her job is to be a callous lawyer stereotype and UN-bothered when someone calls her a callous lawyer stereotype in slightly different words. She does manage to quickly become funnier and more amiable as Yu Ran starts fitting in, aided a great deal by not being asked to flip a switch in her performance - Yu Ran becoming more domestic doesn't make her any less refined or shark-like, but simply directs those instincts. Being given a whole three-dimensional character to play at that point actually lets Gwei be funnier. She plays well enough opposite young actors Nana Ou-yang and William Wang to sell her transformation, although it takes a little longer to feel proper chemistry with Chen Kun. Gwei handles this material well enough that it often seems like the movie should be a fair bit funnier. There are enjoyably goofy bits built around the Terminal workers and lots of things that seem like set-up for good jokes. The high-powered lawyer hiding in the bushes to avoid a gaggle of scary soccer moms at the bus stop, for instance, seems like it should lead to more things along that line, as does Tian's alien theory or Yu Ran's misadventures in housework; He and writers Ha Zichao & Hu Jialin tend to get one good chuckle out of something that could net a half-dozen. Of course, the flip side is that they probably did pretty well to back off on making things zany, considering that this is a story that opens with the main character dying in a slow-motion car crash, has a young mother die of a heart-attack off-screen, and then has rotten things happen to various kids in order to test Yu Ran's growth. Maybe you don't want to make the big jokes there. The fact that the filmmakers are more aware of how such things can seem tone-deaf likely makes the finale a lot less squirm-inducing than this sort of fantasy often is, as well. It's not uncommon for this sort of movie to sprain an eyelid winking at the audience in the last act, or have its lessons be that the career woman's ambitions from the start were unimportant or invalid, and that He and company take pains to make what happens clear without over- explaining is appreciated nearly as much as the respect given Yu Ran. The end may be kind of muted, it's actually a lot better than I expected, and a more daring film might not have been this competent in making things fit. That's kind of damning with faint praise, which the film doesn't deserve. It won't become any sort of classic, but it's sweet and has its share of funny moments. One can feel good coming out of it despite all the ways it could have gone wrong.

• Film's Heart is in the Right Place

  larrys32019-04-13

  Although this film's heart is in the right place and its intentions are worthy, the movie itself never really came together emotionally for me till its closing minutes. It's central theme is based on the experiences of a driven career lawyer who has shunned family and friends and has instead chosen a lonely and isolative lifestyle. The woman Li Yu Ran (Gwei Lum-Mei), who after visiting her mother's graveside is killed in a horrific road accident. However, arriving at The Terminal of Fate, she learns her death has been a clerical error on their part, so if she wants to get back her life she'll have to briefly replace a mother of two who has just passed away. Of course, in doing so she'll learn some most valuable life's lessons as a temporary wife and mother. This all sounds like the basis of a really solid fantasy tale, yet there were too many plot elements that went unexplained, and somehow, as mentioned, the movie just didn't congeal emotionally till its final twenty minutes or so. Overall, I would say there was a better movie in here that never really got told effectively.

• Good Enough

  pennyelenabooks2018-11-05

  Beautiful Accident had the merits to become a really good movie. Alas, the ending wasn't as good as the rest of the movie. I really liked, though, the family dynamics and how the leading lady transformed and had a major character development. However, I felt that some incident happened out of the blue. In addition, the performances were really good from every actor and especially the leading lady. Finally, I really loved the soundtrack of this movie.

• difficult to read subtitles

  futuretype2019-02-20

  It was an interesting storyline with some strong acting but a third to one half of the subtitles were illegible due to being white on white.

• Watch it without a doubt!!

  feelnaren2018-11-01

  I watched with subtitle on, worth it. Strong story, matured acting and all good things.