Li Xuelian and her husband stage a fake divorce to secure a second apartment in the city reserved by the government for single people. But when her husband remarries months later to a different woman, a furious Li files a lawsuit and takes her fight to the highest levels of government in Beijing.

Pairing one of China’s most successful commercial filmmakers with one of its biggest stars, this captivating morality play is also formally adventurous in its use of a round frame. With a terrific lead in Fan Bingbing, Feng Xiaogang’s Kafkaesque epic mounts a crusade against state bureaucracy.