The gap between Xie’s melodramas and the robust slapstick of Big Li, Little Li and Old Li demonstrates the director’s astonishing versatility. This screwball comedy casts an affectionate but farcical eye on the difficulties of three workers with the same name as they adjust to the new physical culture regimen at their factory, meant to increase health, productivity and efficiency. The film’s ideological brilliance lies in its translation of the difficulty of assimilating revolutionary change into the bodily awkwardness of its title characters. The film also finds Xie at his most exuberant, from its animated credit sequence to the sight gags that recall Frank Tashlin.