My review of 'A Woman, a Gun and a Noodle Shop'

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A WOMAN, A GUN AND A NOODLE SHOP (2009)
(Directed by Zhang Yimou)

"The title is funny because the movie doesn't really focus on any of those."- Signed by MartialHorror.

Plot: The owner of a Noodle shop hires a local detective to kill his adulterous wife and her lover, but nothing goes as planned.

Review:

I am incapable of reviewing “A Woman, a gun and a Noodle Shop” objectively, because I’ve seen what it is a remake of: “Blood Simple”. It is a an odd movie, not in itself, but In the fact that Zhang Yimou (“Hero”) tries to undo everything the Coen Brothers did for their film and put it back to together as a Zhang Yimou film. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? I’d say both. It’s one of the few movies where it’s strengths are also its weaknesses and it’s weaknesses are also its strengths. Perhaps I would’ve liked it a lot more if I wasn’t familiar with its source material, but I am, and I found this film to be a mixed bag.

Wang (Dahong Ni), a noodle shop owner, discovers that his wife (Ni Yan) is having an affair with his intern named Li (Xiao Shen-Yang). He decides to hire a corrupt officer named Zhang (Hunglei Sun) to kill them. However, as expected, nothing goes according to plan……..It is identical in terms of story to the Coen’s film, but it just lacks the detail that went into it. With “Blood Simple”, the script had a sense of chaos to it. It kept things compelling, but also realistic. “A Woman, a Gun and a Noodle Shop” lacks that realism. The characters do things that exist to serve the story and keep it going, so while there are a lot of surprises, they’re more predictable because they feel much more like 'movie' surprises. To be fair, Zhang Yimou clearly wants to be more ‘theatrical’ with the film. It’s not meant to be realistic. It’s just that I preferred that aspect of the original.

The characters for the most part are too broad to be realistic. The characters in the original were all nuanced but grounded in reality. The wife in the original was fully likable, despite my disdain for people who commit adultery. The wife here isn’t unlikable, she’s just too over-the-top to be considered a real person. Her lover is a coward and this is played for laughs. Her lover in the original- the hero- is a pretty decent person but I’ve always liked how smug he acted when he confronted her husband. It shows this guy isn’t one-dimensional in his likability. He’s bragging that he stole his wife. The husband here isn’t as sympathetic as he is in the original because he’s overtly abusive (in the original, he just appears to be unpleasant and obsessive) but he’s also not as scary. The hired killer is the biggest divergence, with mixed results. In the original, he’s a thoroughly interesting and unpredictable character. Here, he’s dead serious, showing little to no emotion. However, he also has a lot of presence. It’s just a matter of preference. Because they feel like movie characters, they cannot be accepted as real people, diminishing their impact. On the other hand, this means that they’re significantly funnier. I especially find Ni Yan’s portrayal as the wife to be hilarious and there’s something uniquely charming about her. So I can’t call the characters and how they’re played by their actors failures either.

I told you it was a mixed bag. If you found the characters of “Blood Simple” to be rather dull and boring, you might prefer Zhang Yimou’s more ‘colorful’ characters. I didn’t, but at least I was amused by them.

Zhang Yimou’s visual style is even more polarizing. There’s no denying that this movie is beautiful. The scenery- which I’m sure is at least partially computer generated- is stunning to look at. I love Zhangs use of color. He’s always kept his colors bright and vivid and this is no exception. The dirt is a bright tan color, and when the soldiers (dressed in blue) arrive, it provides a nice contrast as the colors work well together. Despite almost all of the action taking place at the noodle house, the film somehow manages to create an epic feel, and sometimes even manages to become claustrophobic. Whether you like the film or not, it is gorgeous.

Yet I still prefer the look of “Blood Simple”.

The look of the original embodied the suspense, paranoia and claustrophobia the characters (and us, the viewers) felt. If “A Woman, a Gun and a Noodle Shop” has any of this, it’s for a few scenes. But the original personified all of these feelings in its entirety. It was dark and gritty and often uncomfortable to sit through. It served the story and the story served it, and it was more effective for it. It can be argued that this remake’s visual style served its own story, which was lighter and comedic, but it’s just another case of the preferences. Personally, the suspense here was lacking. It’s as if Zhang knew that his viewers saw the original, so decided to make scenes shorter. The more ‘intense’ sequences go by too quickly, too quick to be to suspenseful although I doubt the candy colored visual style would’ve helped anyway. But if you’re too impatient and found “Blood Simple” to be boring, you might prefer ‘the quicker’ “A Woman, a Gun and a Noodle Shop”.

In the end, I’d say this. If you didn’t like “Blood Simple” because the characters were too dull or it was too boring and you happen to like Chinese films, give “A Woman, a Gun and a Noodle Shop” a look. If you haven’t seen the original, see it. Or if you like Zhang Yimou or Chinese cinema in general, you should also give it a look. Hell, if you liked the original you should see this two simply for comparing/contrasting sake. It’s worth watching, it’s just not great (compared to the original), but I can certainly respect and appreciate a lot about this film. If you haven’t seen the original, I don’t know how you would react. But if you’re into Chinese films, then why wouldn’t you see it? It’s beautiful and funny, but I prefer the dark look and edginess of the original “Blood Simple”.

Oh yeah, despite my throwaway joke in my review about the original about this having kung fu……It doesn’t. There is one scene of martial arts in the opening and that doesn’t really count.

Violence: Rated PG-13 worthy, maybe even a light R. It’s not as violent as the original, but it is fairly violent.

Nudity: None. There is a ‘mistaken for sex’ scene though.

Overall: “A Woman, a Gun and a Noodle Shop” is worth watching based off of what I’ve already said. I liked the good more than not, I just prefer the original (I like saying that, don't I? I prefer the original. I prefer the original. I prefer the original).

2.5/4 Stars


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