Girls Always Happy (Rou qing shi)
Yang Mingming
15
117 mins
2018
China
Mandarin (English Subtitles)
Nai An, Yang Mingming, Zhang Xianmin, Li Qinqin, Huang Wei
Director of Photography: Shen Xiaomin
Editor: Yang Mingming
Produced by: Yang Jing, Sun Hebin, Wang Lei, Li Tao
Screenplay by: Yang Mingming
Sound Production: Fang Tao
Director Bio
Yang Mingming
Director Bio
Yang Mingming graduated from National Academy of Chinese Theatre Arts. She directed, shot and starred in her short debut Female Directors, one of the top ten Chinese independent films of 2012, and showcased in youth film festivals both home and abroad. In 2015, she edited Yang Chao’s feature film Crosscurrent, which won the Silver Bear for Outstanding Artistic Contribution.
This wonderfully bitter comedy drama lays bare a complex yet oddly co-dependent mother-daughter relationship, all set against an intriguing lower-middle-class backdrop in Beijing. Writer, director, editor and lead actor Yang Mingming is terrific as wonderfully sour twenty-something writer Wu, who rides her push scooter through the streets with blissful abandon. Her relationship with her mother (Nai An) veers from ferocious bickering to playful banter, with the pair more similar than either will admit. Bleakly funny and insightful.
Supported by the Confucius Institute for Scotland.