The 2017 Chinese animated film Have a Nice Day (大世界) will play in Pittsburgh from April 6 through April 19. The distributor offers a summary:
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 mere driver, steals a bag containing 1 million 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…
Liu Jian delivers a whirlwind neo-noir, cementing his place as a pioneering force in independent Chinese animation.
A 2017 Variety review adds:
Against crisply drawn yet richly textured backgrounds, the actual animation (as in, those things that move on screen) is relatively minimal and fairly crude: Often, it is only a flat, 2D car zooming by in the foreground or the blink of an eye in an otherwise static frame that gives any sense of motion at all. But not only does that keep the proceedings simple and linear, it has the effect of focusing the attention where Liu wants it to go: either on the dialogue, which grazes against topics petty and profound while remaining in an ingratiatingly characterful chatty register, or on those backgrounds in which even the plainest wall is peeling with torn fliers and cracked plaster, and every alleyway is a jumble of signage and wiring and trash.The movie will play twice a day, at 6:00 pm and 8:00 pm, on all dates but April 9th and April 16th. General admission tickets are $8---students and seniors $7---and are available for purchase at the theater. The Harris Theater is located at 809 Liberty Ave. in downtown's Cultural District (map).
