A Woman, A Gun and A Noodle Shop (2009)

[Guest WuxiaFan]

I saw A WOMAN, A GUN AND A NOODLE SHOP over the weekend and I must say, I really liked it! This is billed as a remake of the Coen brother's BLOOD SIMPLE. I never saw BLOOD SIMPLE so I can't speak to that film nor do a comparison.

I am a fan of Zhang Yimou (HERO, HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS) so I was eagerly anticipating this film. This is classic Yimou with superb acting, a great script, very colorful costumes, intricate sets, on-location shooting, incredible cinematography, and of course, flying arrows. Here's the synopsis of the film:

Wang is a miserable yet cunning noodle shop owner in a desert town in China. Feeling neglected, Wang’s wife secretly goes out with Li, one of his employees. A timid man, Li reluctantly keeps the gun the landlady bought for ‘killing her husband later’. However, not a single move they make escapes the boss’s notice, and he decides to bribe patrol officer Zhang to kill the illicit couple. It looks like a perfect plan: the affair will come to a cruel but satisfying end... or so he thinks, but the equally wicked Zhang has an agenda of his own that will lead to even more violence.

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The 3 main actors of the film gave excellent performances and the story kept my attention all the way through. Out of the 3, I thought actress YAN Ni (as Wang’s wife) was incredible. She was beautiful, funny and just great to watch. I had the benefit of seeing the movie with a Chinese friend who understood Mandarin. My friend laughted most of the way through the film and said the humor just did not translate through the subtitles. Still, the film was very enjoyable.

The most memorable scene was when they actually made the noodles in the noodle shop! They started with kneeding the dough and then each cook started tossing and spinning it around above their heads until it got larger and larger and larger! There were 2 characters that did this and my Chinese friend said that was actually real and they still do that today! It was a very cool scene.

Here's a link to the film's website.

http://www.sonyclassics.com/awomanagunandanoodleshop/synopsis.html

Go see it if you get the chance!

[daisho2004]

It looks pretty good, I also never seen Blood Simple. Is this out on DVD?

[masterofoneinchpunch]

It looks pretty good, I also never seen Blood Simple. Is this out on DVD?

Blood Simple is a pretty cool film of interest to Coen Brother fans as well as murder/mystery films.

This remake has angered a few reviewers like Jim Emerson (Roger Ebert's editor online), but I'm not the biggest fan of him anyways.

Amazon emailed me today (auto emails) that that film is now available for pre-order (R1) even though a release date is not given: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0041KKY9M/ (BD is also available)

[paimeifist]

Just finished watching this, and I actually agree with close to everything that the OP said. I also haven't seen Blood Simple, but I would definitely like to see It now to compare the two. This had some fantastic acting, and beautiful shots. I think the best performance was probably by the man playing "Zhang" the patrol officer, I won't explain why to avoid spoilers tough. I also enjoyed the secluded atmosphere, there was no music what so ever, a small cast, and plenty of gorgeous shots of the desert location. It really added to the movie, and the paranoia of many of the characters. The noodle cooking scene was probably the coolest looking scene imo as well.

Really cool movie, great atmosphere, direction, and acting.

Edit: I didn't comment on the comedy of the film.. It was a pretty big aspect, and there are plenty of laughs to counteract the otherwise bleak and dark mood of the movie. It's strange, while the movies plot is definitely dark, the bright colors, comedy, and "bubbly" nature of half of the characters balances it out well without throwing it out of whack. If you saw a screenshot of this movie, you would never think it to be such a dark flick! I watched this with my lady friend, and while neither of us busted out laughing, we both had more than a few chuckles.