Celebrated female director Ann Hui delves deep into middle-aged angst in July Rhapsody, widely regarded as one of the best works of contemporary Hong Kong cinema. Drawing on Chinese poetry and student-teacher romances in two generations, the film poetically explores the trials and tribulations of middle adulthood, grieving over broken relationships, long-gone youth and lost dreams. While the film is quiet in tone, it's a deeply affecting human drama that captures turbulent emotions. In her final film appearance, Mui completely disappears into her role as an everyday woman with a long-buried secret, and a mother/wife who lost herself in marriage in search of love and acceptance.

A 40-year-old high school teacher Lam Yiu-kwok is caught in his midlife crisis, a marriage on the rocks, and a taboo teacher-student romance when his student Choy-lam doesn't seem to hide her crush on him, while his wife Chan Man-ching (Anita Mui) is off to care for her dying ex-lover, Mr Seng, who shares a complicated history with the couple.

"Affecting, well-developed drama from Ann Hui, and probably her finest film in years... Despite the narrative and stylistic skills of Johnnie To and Fruit Chan, Ann Hui may actually be Hong Kong's best storyteller." - LoveHKFilm.com

"Hui is not a didactic filmmaker. She is a narrative filmmaker who situates her characters in the imperfect social world and shows them struggling, and largely succeeding, to survive. Thedaily doings and settings of the characters are densely detailed with a kind of documentary realism, and the story unfolds almost casually, with moments of humour and pathos. Hui endows the major characters with vitality and nobility, though she does not shrink from displaying their trying imperfections and aberrations."- Senses of Cinema