The Black Cannon Incident

An inoffensive engineer comes under suspicion of industrial espionage. The Security Bureau finds plenty to worry over in his file: raised as a Catholic, never married, he'd had a mysterious argument with a visiting expert from Germany. And so he's packed off to the maintenance depot (where, of course, there is nothing to do) while a pea-brained investigation is launched. Take the resulting chaos as comedy or tragedy; either way, there's no doubt the Chinese ruling class comes in for an unsparing hammering. What's more, the film's political daring is matched by a torrent of bright ideas in the plotting, design and colour-control departments.