The King of Masks

Wang Bianlian is a street performer and master of the Szechuan opera technique involving the fast alternation of masks. Having long been estranged from his family, Lian longs to find a male heir to whom he can teach his craft. Few candidates are found, until he buys a young boy from a poor family. He begins to teach the boy, whom he affectionately nicknames Doggie, but soon discovers that Doggie is not a boy at all, but in fact a girl, and therefore excluded from Lian’s craft.