PECK ON THE CHEEK, A

The Hong Kong martial-arts-cinema aesthete finally found a measure of respect in the West after years of barely-restrained critical scorn (except, of course, at the CIFF; we clued in to Tsui Hark and John Woo ahead of the curve). Similarly, we predict that 21st century Hollywood may look east, to the “Bollywood” school of Indian film storytelling, to re-invigorate increasingly-tiresome mainstream fare in American multiplexes. Witness A PECK ON THE CHEEK, a lilting musical whose sari-clad arms manage to embrace romance, comedy, spectacle, terrorism, social drama and the identity crisis of a child, with camerawork that dances like a Busby Berkley chorine, a vibrantly flashbacking narrative, and emotions ranging from operatic to temple-quiet. And yet such an unlikely composite functions beautifully. It opens with the arranged marriage of Dileep and Madhavan Shyama, Tamils in Sri Lanka in the early 1990s. Their happiness ruptured by the civil war on that strife-torn island, M. Shyama escapes alone to a refugee camp on the Indian mainland, where she gives birth to a baby girl. Nine years later that daughter is Amudha, shining star in the rollicking brood of a celebrated Indian writer and his glamorous TV-presenter wife. When her adoptive father at last informs Amudha that she's not of their blood, Amudha extracts the true story of her tragic origins, and of her adoptive parents' singular courtship. But Amudha's closure will come when she locates her real parents. And thus the family follows the trail of Shyama, back to the guerilla-infested Sri Lankan battle zones, risking all for a reunion that will complete a little girl lost between two worlds. (In Hindi and Tamil with English subtitles)