Hi, Mom

After losing her mother in an accident, Jia Xiaoling finds herself in 1981 and becomes friends with her mother as a young, unmarried woman named Li Huanying. Her aim is to give her mother a better life, which means accepting that she herself might never be born. Jia Ling developed the film from a stage piece she wrote after her own mother's death, directed it, and played the lead. The first half is straight comedy; in the second a piece of information surfaces and the whole story has to be reread. It was an extraordinary box office success in China and became one of the highest-grossing films ever directed by a woman. Who it is for: viewers who like emotional Chinese comedy and mother and daughter stories. Who it is not for: anyone wanting restraint, since the ending plays directly for tears.