Sightlines · reception

How Better Days was received

2019 · Derek Tsang Kwok-Cheung · Better Days on Sightlines

The arc

Its road to screens was chaos — yanked from Berlin days before its 2019 premiere, then surprise-dropped in China with barely any notice — but it exploded into a $230M+ hit, and a Best International Feature Oscar nomination for Hong Kong in 2021 sealed its climb from censorship casualty to modern classic.

What’s debated

The unresolvable fan debate: can you fully love it knowing the source novel was widely accused of lifting from Keigo Higashino — great film, tainted DNA?

Its footprint

"You protect the world, I'll protect you" became the film's calling card across Chinese social media, and the matching-buzzcuts image of Zhou Dongyu and Jackson Yee is its endlessly reposted visual shorthand.

Where it stands

A Letterboxd favorite of the East Asian cinema crowd — routinely name-dropped as one of the great Chinese-language films of its era and the proof-of-serious-actor moment for Jackson Yee.

Did you know? Jackson Yee was best known as one-third of boy band TFBoys when this became his first leading film role — it won him Best New Performer at the Hong Kong Film Awards, where the film swept eight prizes including Best Film, Best Director and Best Actress for Zhou Dongyu.