Josephine Siao faces real challenges in Shu Kei's comedy-drama. Her character Lang Kim-Sum not only has to hold together a family which threatens to break apart (her step-daughter Mimi appears to be in a lesbian romance, and her husband is freaking out about it) but also has to play male leads in Cantonese Operas and guide her own opera troupe through the stresses and strains of modernisation.

The title Hu Du Men is an untranslatable term from the Chinese opera stage (it signifies the imaginary line around the stage, the line which locks actors into the characters they play) and its metaphorical meaning here is clear: Lang is a woman like all of us, defined by the circumstances of her life. The question is: how will she cope with a real disruption in the shape of her own illegitimate son, given up for adoption 22 years ago?

Shu Kei has intelligently opened out Raymond To's original play without betraying its essential theatricality, and he gets wonderful performances from a great supporting cast headed by Anita Yuen. But the core of the film is the matchless Josephine Siao. Tony Rayns