The audience gasps in that odd mixture of surprise and recognition that great story-telling affords.

What Tsotsi fails to explain is how the mere introduction of a baby can melt the cruel cycle of criminality and disregard for others.

With lively pacing, superb performances and a candid yet forgiving heart, Hood has created an inverse fairy tale that is never less than absorbing.

It is one of only a handful of films where I have, quite literally, forgotten that it is a foreign film.