Fong Sai-Yuk

Fast action comedy in period costume. The cobbled script uses real characters and organisations, but whips up an entirely fictitious froth of martial arts tournaments, undeclared passions and underground resistance movements. It centres less on the nominal star Jet Li than on the sublime Josephine Siao, in and out of drag as the hero's protective mother, her performance a show-stopping culmination of three decades of fine work in the Hong Kong cinema.