A Woman, a Gun, and a Noodle Shop (Creative Commons)

"A Woman, A Gun And A Noodle Shop"

(China, 2009, 95 mins)

The remake of the Coen Brothers’ 1984 “Blood Simple” should’ve been impressive, but it wasn’t.

Instead of the dark tone the original employed, director Zhang Yimou started off “A Woman, a Gun, and a Noodle Shop” like a slapstick comedy and I got the feeling he couldn’t decide whether to stick with humor or go with something more serious.

If he had kept the slapstick consistent, it may have been a better movie, instead of trading off somewhere in the middle to a tense, almost silent movie.

The actors played absurd caricatures and I honestly didn’t care if everyone died in the end. The one person I did really like was the one running around killing everyone, but I doubt that was the director’s intention.

What’s most disappointing is that I love Zhang Yimou’s pre “Hero” work like “To Live,” “Raise the Red Lantern,” “Shanghai Triad” and “Happy Times.” He lost me when he started doing the larger, more operatic pieces like “Hero” and “House of Flying Daggers.” I’ll still watch everything he makes though, because his earlier films were so good that I keep looking for that magic.

That magic isn’t here in this movie. “A Woman, a Gun, and a Noodle Shop” stays very true to “Blood Simple’s” plot. A woman has a husband; cheats on him with someone who works for the husband; the husband finds out and comes up with a plan to kill them both. Things go awry.

A difference in the two movies is that Frances McDormand plays the adulteress in “Blood Simple” and she acts it in such a subtle, innocent manner while her surroundings are so violent that I couldn’t help but be awed. Basically, all the deaths are caused by her in an either direct or indirect way, but I still wanted her to live in the end.

Not the case with “A Woman, a Gun, and a Noodle Shop.” Ni Yan plays Frances McDormand’s role and she’s a shrill woman who is either drunk or screaming hysterically. Although she’s given more reason to cheat on her husband, I couldn’t identify with her because she was so annoying.

The same goes for Frances McDormand/Ni Yan’s lover. Ni Yan’s paramour is outfitted in a hot pink “I Dream of Jeannie”-esque uniform with a red and gold belly shirt and is always crying. He’s just plain ridiculous. He might as well have peed in his pants from all his anxiety and he too, was unbearably irritating. At one point the lady sitting next to me in the theater shouted at the screen, “Just kill that guy already!”

This review is just one person’s opinion though, since the Coen brothers wrote to Zhang Yimou and told him that they loved his movie.

“They said it was very amusing,” said Zhang. “They took the trouble to write and say they loved the way I changed things. I was very pleased by that."

There’s one scene where the staff is preparing noodles and it’s the one truly cool scene in the entire movie. The desert cinematography was also much more beautiful than the flat Texas landscape of “Blood Simple.” But overall, the characters, the silliness and the uneven tone ruined a potentially excellent remake of an already outstanding original.

To reach editor Roselle Chen, click here.