May 13–20, 1999

movie shorts

The King of Masks

Fans of classic art-house fare will delight in King of Masks, a simple fable about an aging Chinese street performer who finds himself without an heir to carry on his ancestral trade. He purchases a street urchin at an underground market where parents sell children — mainly female — they cannot afford to keep, but though the performer thinks he has found a rare unwanted son, things do not turn out as planned. Shot simply and told in broad strokes, this is not a film to change one's view of the world, but it's an effective melodrama, with a slight feminist undercurrent to give the tale some relevance. Directed by Wu Tian-Ming.

—Sam Adams