High school comedy genre grows up

STEALING becomes child's play - quite literally, amongst other things - in Taiwanese director Yee Chih-yen's Meeting Dr Sun, a light-hearted high school heist drama about a bunch of students trying to steal an abandoned statue of the founding father of Republican China so they can sell it to pay their school fees.

Winner of Best Original Screenplay at the recent Golden Horse Awards and Taipei Film Festival, it's also a thinking man's comedy with Yee making a subtle socio-political statement about poverty in modern Taiwan behind the laughs.

The film is his first feature in 12 years and only his third so far in a career that spans almost two decades. Clearly here's a director who chooses quality over quantity and it shows, with Meeting Dr Sun proving itself to be a multi-layered piece of work.