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| Movie Review: A Woman a Gun and a Noodle Shop Alternate Title: Blood Simple Re-Imagined
Story: Award winning Chinese
director, Zhang Yimou, has paid the brilliant Coen
Brothers the highest compliment with this rousing re-imagining
of their first film, Blood Simple, made in
1984. This Chinese retake was written by Xu Zhenghao and
Shi Jianquan. The story remains essentially the same. An old,
wealthy merchant, pays a gun for hire to murder his young, unfaithful
wife and her lover. Along they way, we discover all of the films' characters
have their own plans for murder, double crosses, revenge and escape.
The best part of the story line has much to do with these plot twists
and turns. An unnamed star of this film has to be the landscape.
The noodle shop is somewhere along an isolated trade route in western
China. The shop is surrounded by an other-worldly mountainous, sand
dune filled vista. The sun drenched hills create stripes of brilliant
dazzling colors, light and shadow. An artist's eye for sure. If you are looking for 90 minutes of celluloid
artistry, check out this film and then go rent Blood Simple - or vice
versa. Watch the trailers here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMGBQDpfLnc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vI0ov8zzfQA Acting: Everyone is terrific including: Sun
Honglei (Zhang), Xiao Shenyang (Li) and Ni
Dahong (Wang), Yan Ni (Wang’s wife),
Cheng Ye (Zhao) and Mao Mao (Chen).
Trivia: Director Zhang Yimou's films
often explore the dark side of life in small Chinese rural communities.
Most of his films begin with the title displayed in Chinese calligraphy
style. He directed the Beijing 2008 Olympics
Games Opening Ceremony. Some of my favorite films of his are:
Ju Dou, Raise the Red Lantern, The Story of Qui Ju, The Road
Home, Not One Less
Predilection: I like Zhang Yimou's films.
Critters: Horses
Food: A wonderful scene of the making of noodles
that will go into a yummy soup.
Soundtrack: I do not believe there was any music in
this film but the sound design was terrific.
Opening Titles: As usual, the use of Chinese calligraphy
in the opening titles is used in this director's film.
Visual Art: Director of photography, Zhao
Xiaoding is brilliant.
Theater Audience: About 25 other cineastes.
Weather: Gorgeous
Sappy Factor: 0
Quirky Meter: 0
Squirm Scale: 0
Drift Factor: 0
Predictability Level: If you have seen Blood Simple
there will not be many surprises but that takes away nothing from this
fine film.
Tissue Usage: 0
Oscar Worthy: Yes
Big Screen or Rental: Big screen. For rentals go
for his other films including: Ju Dou, Raise the Red Lantern,
The Story of Qui Ju, The Road Home, Not One Less
Length: 90 minutes
LOBO HOWLS: 9
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