This beautifully observed comedy opens with a tracking shot through the streets of Beijing, set to the strains of a Kurt Weill song in the background—a delightful signal of Ning Ying’s unique, boundary-crossing perspective on the new China. An old man, forced to retire from his life-long job as manager of the local opera house, meets up with a cantankerous group of elderly amateur singers in the park and organizes the men into a troupe of their own. In her simple, realist style, Ning Ying delineates her characters with precise, economical, and loving detail.