In 2006, Ning Hao delighted his fans in Busan with the closing film, Crazy Stone, at the Busan International Film Festival. This year, he returns after seventeen years with another closing film, The Movie Emperor, joined by the all-time legendary actor, Andy Lau. Hong Kong movie star Lau Weichi (Andy Lau) misses out on the Best Actor Award again at the Hong Kong Film Awards. Deciding that a more serious film might win him an award from a foreign film festival, Lau contacts director Lin Hao (Ning Hao). Lau is cast in the part of an ordinary villager, wearing the iconic cotton-padded jacket that is synonymous with Chinese cinema, but Lin criticizes his acting for lacking reality. The fastidious director is very demanding; the production budget is limited; and there is difficulty communicating with a foreign film festival programmer. On top of this, Lau’s ex-wife and children grow distant from him, and he himself is about to be embroiled in a scandal. Ning Hao and Andy Lau, renowned director and actor starring in this self-reflexive film about filmmaking, skillfully navigate between reality and fiction, effectively portraying their respective characters. Through the predicaments faced by Hong Kong star Lau Weich in mainland China, Ning Hao deftly captures the fine line between the film industries in Hong Kong and mainland China, the delicate relationship between Western film festivals and Asian filmmakers, the internal conflicts within the capital-dominated film industry, and the tension in the new era of shifting morals where authenticity is no longer a virtue. The charm of Andy Lau, looking truly perplexed in the clash of exploding energies in a topsy-turvy world created by Ning Hao, adds to the reality of the film. (PARK Sun Young)