Bamboo Shoots
Genre: Comedy
Director: Jian Yi
Stars: Wang Jianbo
Rate: ***

A hastily packed prophylactic is this gentle Chinese satire, about a small-town peasant trying to spare his community embarrassment: the offending condom was stuck in a box of bamboo shoots being sent as a gift to town officials. Jian Yi’s comic style is so deadpan that it sometimes doesn’t register, but the slow, deliberate style works well for the material.