Maps of Movies
Better Days (2019)
Where Better Days says it takes place, and where it was really shot.
Set in a fictional 'Anqiao City' in 2011, the film was shot almost entirely in Chongqing, down to a public escalator and an old riverside block.
View on the map
Scenes and places
The cram school where Chen Nian is watched (2011)
A classmate's death shakes the school, and Chen Nian, sixty days from the college entrance exam, becomes the next target of the girls who bullied her. Police ask her what the dead girl said, and she answers nothing.
Set in Chen Nian's school, Anqiao City — The exam-cram school in the film's fictional Anqiao City, 60 days before the college entrance exam.
A school-day street in Chongqing's Jiulongpo district doubles for the film's fictional Anqiao City.
Chen Nian's home, where the creditors knock (2011)
Chen Nian keeps the curtains shut because her mother's creditors keep turning up. She studies at home and holds onto one plan: pass the exam and leave.
Set in Chen Nian's home — The cramped flat where Chen Nian studies behind drawn curtains while her mother's creditors come looking.
A late-1990s residential block in Haitangxi, on the south bank of the Yangtze.
Xiao Bei's place, the refuge (2011)
Chased by the girls who bullied her, Chen Nian turns to the one person who owes the school nothing, the street thug Xiao Bei. She asks him to protect her until the exam.
Set in Xiao Bei's home — The shabby place where street thug Xiao Bei lives; Chen Nian turns to him when the bullies chase her.
A run-down neighbourhood by a Chongqing road interchange, now gone.
The escalator walk home (2011)
Xiao Bei walks Chen Nian to and from school every day, and the two grow close. In the quiet of the walk she asks if it hurts, and he says nobody had asked him before.
Set in The walk from school to Chen Nian's home — Xiao Bei accompanies Chen Nian to and from school, and the two begin to open up to each other.
A public escalator in Chongqing's Yuzhong district, one of the city's film-fan stops.
Filmed at Huangguan (Crown) escalator, 107 Zhongshan 3rd Road, Yuzhong (Yuzhong · Zhongshan 3rd Road, Chongqing, China) — Filmed on the long public escalator. Google Maps · Apple Maps
How to get there:
Filmed at Tongyuanju Station Line 3 footbridge (Nan'an · Tongyuanju, Chongqing, China) — The footbridge they cross Google Maps · Apple Maps
Characters
- Chen Nian — A high-school senior preparing for the college entrance exam who is bullied at school.
- Xiao Bei — A teenage street thug whose life becomes intertwined with Chen Nian's.
Questions answered on the map
- Where was the walk home in Better Days really filmed?