Wu Tianming, director of such classics as Old Well, returns to filmmaking after six years of "exile" in California. The King of Masks is set in the rural Szechuan of the 1930s. The title character is an elderly street entertainer (his act involves switching masks with uncanny speed) who realizes that he risks dying without an heir to the secrets of his art. On impulse he decides to adopt a son, and buys a boy from a penniless man-only to discover that he has been tricked: the child is actually a girl. And women are trouble. Given Wu Tianming's personal history and current situation, it is impossible to avoid sensing elements of allegory in the film-for example, when the King of Masks trades security for independence.-Tony Rayns