LET THE BULLETS FLY (Jiang Wen). 132 minutes. Subtitled. Opens Friday (March 2). For venues and times, see Movies. Rating: NNN
Let The Bullets Fly is a witty comedy about a bandit who poses as the new governor of a small town and enters into complicated power games with its resident crime lord/nobleman.
Lots of elaborate lying ensues between the bandit (writer/director Jiang Wen) and the crime lord (Chow Yun Fat, gleefully exercising his oily side). The former is assisted by Counselor Soup (Feng Xiaogang), who’s always ready with some inside-the-box defeatism and may be working for the other side.
The most spectacular scene is the opening train robbery, highlighted by a pair of horse-drawn railway cars flying through the air. After that comes a series of abductions and killings, some real, some faked, and most involving some form of identity-switching. All this culminates in a mass shootout in the dark, with everyone wearing identical masks.
It’s lively enough, but for non-Chinese speakers, constant, rapid-fire dialogue keeps your eyes glued to the subtitles, which sometimes go by too quickly to read fully, spoiling much of the fun.
