It takes nerve to remake a movie like the Coen brothers' "Blood Simple," in which success with audiences came down not to plot (its elements are as stale as flop sweat) but to an ineffable mix of tones, from bone-dry terror to black comedy.
But Zhang Yimou ("Hero," "To Live"), who has come to be something of an official state artist in his native China, doesn't lack for ambition and seems to think highly of his own ability to throw disparate vibes into the same pot and make the broth worth slurping. He doesn't manage it with "A Woman, a Gun and a Noodle Shop," which is composed of chunks that look promising on their own but are baffling when put together.
Starting off like a kind of circus-hued Sino-spaghetti Western, the movie introduces a remote desert outpost in feudal China whose humble commercial operation is owned by a cuckold, run by buffoons and dominated by a banshee who should never be trusted with a firearm of any kind.
The overacting is extreme, stage-farce stuff, which makes things tough for actor Sun Honglei, playing the serious-minded detective who arrives to investigate one crime and gets embroiled in this gaggle's lust- and greed-fueled drama. Sun hides a cauldron of motives behind his stone face and, as he proceeds to kill his share of schemers and cover his tracks, the actor nearly nudges this goofy enterprise convincingly into noirsville.
It's a shame the actor can't manage that feat by himself, because the visual thrills we can always count on Zhang to deliver - highlighted in this case by a striped desert so dramatic you suspect it can't be real - lend themselves to a transplanted take on the stark betrayals and primal emotions of "Blood Simple" and its many cinematic ancestors.
'A Woman, a Gun and a Noodle Shop'
Our grade: C
Genres: Thriller, Dark Comedy
Running Time: 90 min
MPAA rating: R
Release Date: Dec 11, 2009
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