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RATING:  
SINGAPORE: Chinese filmmaker Zhang Yimou has produced a large number of serious films, from the controversial "Ju Dou" to the breathtakingly beautiful "Hero".
But this time, Zhang enters new territory and presents a slapstick adaptation of the Cohen Brother's 1984 cult classic "Blood Simple" titled "A Woman, A Gun And A Noodle Shop" that is dripping with black humour.
Zhang's film tells the tale of Wang (Ni Dahong), a wealthy old man who runs a noodle shop in a desert town with his wife (Yang Ni), a cook named Li (Xiao Shenyang) and his two other staff.
Wang constantly abuses his wife and she finds solace in the arms of Li with whom she has an affair. One day, Wang's wife buys a gun from a Persian trader, planning to murder her husband with it and be with Li. Wang finds out and hires Zhang (Sun Honglei), a corrupt patrol officer to slay the adulterous pair.
Unfortunately for Wang, things do not turn out as he had planned and his actions spark a chain reaction of deception and death among the film's colourful characters.
The cinematography in "A Woman, A Gun And A Noodle Shop", like most of Zhang Yimou's other films, is exceptional. Shots of the dusty, rust red desert surrounding the noodle shop for example, really bring out the isolation of the noodle shop which in turn focuses the attention squarely on the interaction between the characters.
The comedy also works reasonably well in the first half of the film. Zhang seemed to have taken a page from Hong Kong actor-director Stephen Chow's book as he made use of sight gags and milked his cast's exaggerated actions for laughs.
There are a few problems though. Sometimes the punchlines were culturally specific and were delivered very quickly. They do not translate well and result in hard-to-catch subtitles. The quick fire comedic exchange between Wang's staff for instance, left non-Chinese speakers puzzled as the subtitles zoomed by.
The characters also became caricatures that the audience does not care for as Zhang keeps drawing attention their exaggerated traits, such as Li's effeminate actions and a staff member's impossibly large buck teeth, instead of who they are.
These faults are easily forgotten, however, as the film progresses into its later half when the characters' agendas and plots are slowly revealed. While the transition was a little abrupt, the film manages to discard the comedy of the first half and crank up the tension, as the blood starts to flow and the bodies start piling up.
People who have watched the Cohen Brothers' "Blood Simple" are bound to notice the remarkable similarities the two films share in terms of plot and certain iconic scenes.
Still, I think Zhang did a good job of infusing the thriller's story with slapstick comedy, making it sufficiently different, and more importantly entertaining enough to watch, whether you have seen "Blood Simple" or not.
- CNA
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