Peking Opera Blues (1986)

In Peking Opera Blues, the characters rebel against the regime of Yuan Shikai in 1910s China.  A thief named Xiang Hong gets involved with two political dissidents, and all three end up at a local opera house after the owner's daughter, Bai Niu, helps them out.  One of the dissidents, Tsao Wan, is the daughter of a general, one of the film's antagonists.  She exploits her position to steal information from her father. 

The one thing these characters from different backgrounds have in common is that they all engage in different kinds of performance.  They don't all act on stage, but they all use costumes or disguises to take on new roles that let them into places where they aren't supposed to be.  What comes to dominate in this film, between the ability go wherever you want and the extent to which it exploits the physicality of its sets and actors, is flexibility—though it doesn't come without the effort embodied in improbable feats of acrobatics and martial arts, and the film's late turn into scenes with a much darker tone.

Gender is a form of performance as well in this film.  Bai Niu is kept out of acting because she's not a man, but male actors perform as women on stage.  One of the antagonists becomes attracted to a male actor for his performance of femininity.  Tsao Wan projects masculinity in her clothes, hairstyle, and overall bearing.  And the characters use their gender the way they use costumes and other forms of performance, to get to places that would otherwise be closed off to them.

The characters' recognition of each other's efforts in performance deepens their friendship.  Bai Niu dreams of acting in the opera, but her father insists that only men can be actors.  Tsao Wan, of course, must pretend to be someone she's not to her own father.  In one scene, they perform in tandem: Bai Niu performs on stage with Xiang Hong while Tsao Wan's father sits in attendance.  Tsao Wan is with him, plotting to steal a key he keeps on his person.  Meanwhile, Bai Niu just barely manages to work around Xiang Hong's clumsy acting and keep the opera show going, buying time for Tsao Wan to steal the key.  When Tsao Wan speaks to Bai Niu in a following scene, they form a personal connection from their unlikely common experience. 

It's a tour of spectacles.  In its action scenes and slapstick comedy, almost every element of the environment can be manipulated.  When the characters fight, they launch their whole bodies at their enemies.  A friend of mine described it as "human bowling."  They weave over and under tables to dodge gunfire.  I've never seen anything quite like it in another film, and it only escalates until they're freely using their own bodies as counterweights and trapeze in a final battle that dovetails with an acrobatic opera performance.  Mostly, these scenes are exhilarating.  The characters move quickly but decisively, with no impression of wasted effort. 

The film has little in the way of overarching plot.  The characters come up with plans, fail, then come up with new ones.  As such, the characters' relationships and their considerable talents are what give the film its structure.  It's the notion of the characters thinking on their feet, creating the path before them.  They can succeed without the benefit of a clear plan because they can see the flex points both of their physical surroundings and of social expectation, and are creative enough to hit them.