Uncle Victory

Directed by Zhang Meng

With Zhang Xinyi and Huang Haibo

Chen Shengli, 40, is a dapper ex-con with a spine of steel, who used to hang out with some very bad people. But he’s determined to reform. He returns to the old theatre he owns, where he discovers that a kindergarten now ensconced there can’t pay the rent. The local cops suggest he should run it himself. Which he undertakes to do, with the assistance of Sun Xiaomei, a gorgeous, tough-as-nails nurse who moonlights as a dancer in a seedy local ballroom, which is where they first met. Kindergarten seems to soften Shengli (who still harbours a scarily violent streak), and something like a romance with Xiaomei kindles. But those shady former associates have long-held grudges and won’t let Shengli go…