A Woman, A Gun, and a Noodle Shop

In A Woman, A Gun, and a Noodle Shop director Zhang Yimou brings some of the ostentatious elements of his House of Flying Daggers and Curse of the Golden Flower to bear on a remake of the Coen Brothers’ Blood Simple.

The action has been transposed to a gorgeous striped Chinese desert in an unspecified time a few hundred years in the past where Wang’s Noodle House stands as a lone outpost. A band of traders led by a Persian man has stopped by to show off its wares. Wang’s wife, a hard-nosed woman, is enthralled with the flintlocks and buys ones. After her purchase she brags that she now owns the most powerful weapon in the world. The Persian laughs at this and demonstrates the power of a canon before heading on his way.

The canon blast draws the attention of the local constabulary. They arrive and we are treated to a wonderful choreographed scene of Wang’s wife, her secret lover Li, and their portly bucktoothed co-worker Zhao tossing noodle dough around.

In keeping with the source material, Wang decides to hire a police investigator to kill his wife after he learns from Zhao that she is cheating on him with cowardly Li who dresses all in pink. From here its double crosses and murder as everyone is running away from someone else or working at getting their hands on Wang’s fortune.

The big problem with the film is that the setup artful noodle making scene and some good humor but that’s all lost once Wang takes out the hit. The humor is drained away and we’re left with the steely-eyed assassin chasing three lame stooges. I didn’t mind, in fact I actually liked the fact that none of the characters are particularly likeable. Wang is an abusive old bastard with an annoying wife. Li is so cowardly it’s painful while Zhao is just pretty stupid and childish. But even unlikable characters can be funny. Instead about the only thing that passes for humor in the last two-thirds of the film is people falling down as they run. Characters seem to run away from one another more than they interact.

A Woman, A Gun, and a Noodle Shop starts off with promise. The costumes and scenery are colorful and the characters funny. But the humor dissipates and we’re left with situations that have their promise squandered. This isn’t a horrible movie but it wasted a lot of potential.