Little Big Master

Based on the real-life story of Lillian Lui, a woman who made headlines in Hong Kong when she became the territory’s lowest-paid school headmistress, Little Big Master is at turns genuinely heartwarming and heartbreaking. Faced with a broken education system, misguided parents and a tone-deaf school board, headmistress Lui Wai-hung resigns her post at a prestigious private school. At first planning to travel the world with her (coincidentally) recently out-of-work husband, Lui sees a news report about an impoverished school that is scheduled to close and the dire plight of the six children who currently attend it. With the intention of finding new sources of education for the children, Lui agrees to a monthly salary of HK$4,500 (less than $600 USD) to run the school until its closure. But, when faced with the children’s hardscrabble lives, neglect and the stigma of poverty that follows them, Lui becomes invested in turning the school around and saving it. With just the right doses of melodrama, director Adrian Kwan presents a deeply emotional and enlightening story without sacrificing social or cultural complexity.