A Simple Life (PG)

Starring: Andy Lau, Deannie Yip

Contained within Ann Hui's gentle drama of role-reversal is a reminder of generational duty. Deanie Ip plays Ah Toa, a maid who's been in service 40 years to a Hong Kong family, now mostly disappeared to the US.

Only youngest son Roger (Andy Lau), a film producer, remains in the apartment. When Ah Toa suffers a disabling stroke and goes into a care home, the tables are turned, and Roger slowly realises his debt of responsibility to the old lady. The growing closeness between them is touchingly portrayed (Ip is real-life godmother to Lau) though its drifting final half-hour could have been usefully cut. Once the alternative to a lonesome old age has been established, the film hasn't anywhere left to go but "the only end of age".