A WOMAN, A GUN AND A NOODLE SHOP (Sony, 2009) D: Zhang Yimou, w/ Xiao Shenyang, Yan Ni. Rating: NN DVD package: NNNNN
Rating: NN
A Woman, A Gun And A Noodle Shop is acclaimed director Zhang Yimou‘s remake of the Coen brothers’ first feature, Blood Simple, a noir thriller about a mean husband, his cheating wife, her not so bright lover and a greedy cop.
This version is a comedy set in an isolated roadside restaurant in 19th-century China. Its best moments – the wife buying a gun and the staff twirling dough – are in the opening. After that, the wife, her lover and the servants tremble, yell and panic like they’re possessed by the Three Stooges while the husband and crooked cop play it like straight 40s noir.
Nobody meets in the middle, so the movie never finds its tone.
Even so, the beautiful curved shapes and colour bands of the desert setting make it worth watching.
The 19-part making-of doc runs over 100 minutes and features lots of the director and high-spirited cast on the set.
EXTRAS Making-of doc. Widescreen. Mandarin, Spanish, Portuguese audio. English, French, Spanish, Portuguese subtitles.
