Cinema: Shower

Directed by Zhang Yang

Mainland Chinese films are familiar by now: period melodramas with a lot of court intrigue and fabulous silk frocks. So here's a switch: a modern comedy that trumpets its breeziness from its first shots, of a man stepping into a newfangled street stall that gives his body a sort of car wash. The rest, set in a failing Beijing bathhouse, is a genial study of family collision and reconciliation: the yuppie (Pu Cunxin) with his aged dad and slow-witted brother (Jiang Wu). The film is almost too ingratiating (How many times will you hear a fat Chinese guy sing O sole...

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