A screen capture of The Dead End. [Photo/Mtime]

As a matter of fact, one of its early champions was Cao Baoping, whose film The Dead End has an overlapping theme yet leaves several narrative holes in the story.

Cao's crime story has a stronger drive, and at its heart it attempts to plumb the depths of the human psyche. More significantly, it broke several taboos, including a passionate male-on-male kiss.

The Dead End won an acting award for its male ensemble at the Shanghai International Film Festival, but the year's most eye-opening male performance belongs to a renowned director.

Feng Xiaogang's cameo appearances have been so memorable he ranks among the best character actors in the nation.

In Mr. Six, he turns his formidable acting chops into a character study so immersive it blew me away when I first saw the film. This is a portrayal that goes beyond technique and into the innermost part of his soul.

Ostensibly about a former good-for-nothing, it is imbued with a quiet heroism and evokes a way of life that is fast receding－echoing the somewhat cruel generational shift that is happening in today's film industry.

Not since Zhang Yimou played the male lead in 1986's Old Well has an ace director trumped actors of his profession with such on-screen and off-screen poignancy.

Xu Haofeng's The Master seems to be a scaled-down version of The Grandmaster, which he co-wrote. It is certainly different from the norm, but his familiarity with the material could be holding him back from a full filmic vision.