An uproarious delight from start to finish, Salli is the stuff delirious movie dreams are made of. Just when you thought the romantic comedy was dead, along comes this feisty firecracker of a movie to resuscitate the genre. The incandescent Esther Liu shines in a terrific, star-making turn as Hui-Chun, a sexy, sassy chicken farmer in rural Taiwan who decides she's had enough of society's stifling expectations. Over the objections of her young niece and amiably clueless brother (Austin Lin, in fine form), Hui-Chun jets off to Paris to rendezvous with her online love interest "Martin" - or has she been catfished? After all, she herself transformed into the savvy "Salli" in their virtual courtship.

No matter: Hui-Chun is a woman bent on self-actualization, midlife emancipation be damned. What follows is a giddy, champagne-soaked fable of liberation, as our heroine lets her hair down (and other things) in the City of Light. Director Lien Chien-Hung stirs the bubbles of romantic fantasy and pungent satire into an irresistible comic mélange, while Liu delivers a performance of such potent charisma and dazzling uninhibition, you can't take your eyes off her.