‘The Story of Qiu Ju’ (PG)

A comedy isn't the first thing you'd expect from Zhang Yimou, director of such period epics as "Red Sorghum" and "Ju Dou." But "The Story of Qiu Ju," set in present-day China, is exactly that. It's hardly a threat to the antics of "Naked Gun" but it's a delicately wry take on the absurdities of bureaucratic life.

It upends Zhang's resume wonderfully.

The basic "joke" in this movie is the lengths to which peasant woman Qiu Ju (Gong Li, Zhang's wife and regular leading lady) will go after justice. When her husband is kicked in the groin by the village chief -- for making fun of the chief's inability to make sons -- Qiu Ju decides to do something about it. "If we can't fix your plumbing," the pregnant woman tells docile husband Qinglai (Liu Pei Qi), "we're stuck with the single-child policy for good."

When Qiu Ju takes up the matter with Wang the chief (Lei Lao Sheng), he rebuffs her. So she goes over his head to "Public Security Bureau" official Li (Ge Zhi Jun). Li's compromise solution, a modest fine for Wang, is not enough. Qiu Ju wants an apology and an official explanation for the chief's assault. Her peculiar, non-financial desire -- in this entrenched system of debilitatingly slow redress -- is a quixotic task. But despite her mature pregnancy and modest means, she appears to be the most stubborn woman in the People's Republic.

The movie (which won the 1992 Golden Lion Award at the Venice Film Festival) follows Qiu Ju's resolute progress in painstaking -- but enjoyable -- detail. Gong Li, a great actress capable of stirring, passionate roles, underplays tremendously, as she trudgingly appeals to ascending levels of officialdom, from local to municipal to the courts. During her travels, she learns the graft-like ways of her country. There's the sleazy hotelier who charges less for customers who don't demand a receipt, the cabbie who tries taking Qiu Ju and her sister-in-law (Yang Liu Chun) for an expensive ride and the lawyer who takes her case with experienced indifference.

There's a narrative twist, in which Qiu Ju, who has operated entirely on her moral own, comes to a new decision. True to form, the State not only misses this development, it makes a blundering decision of its own. Once again, Qiu Ju finds herself in contention with the government designed to help the people.

The wheels of justice almost never move, "The Story of Qiu Ju" tells us. And on the rare occasion when they do, they run over everyone's lives. With his adroit use of real crowds -- mostly during Qiu Ju's visit to the big city -- director Zhang gives the movie potent reality. In the faces of the people, as they scurry through the dusty streets and struggle to get by in the world's most populous, dehumanized country, you can see this satirical fable reflected everywhere.