The plot of ‘A Woman, a Gun and a Noodle Shop’ is very close to the film it was based on -‘Blood Simple’, the first film of the Coen Brothers: Young married woman has affair, Husband hires guy to investigate, Plot thickens, People die. Zhang also uses a few of the Coens’ visual ideas in the film, but they really are very different films. Blood Simple is thrilling, exciting, well-conceived, well-written, well-acted and a terrific movie. ‘A Woman, a Gun and a Noodle Shop’ is none of these things. It is occasionally funny, and the visual cues it took from the Coens are great to see re-done more-or-less efficiently. But otherwise, it is the exact opposite of everything that is good about ‘Blood Simple’.
This is a boring film that for no particular reason is inordinately in love with itself. It is presented as a satire and a parody, but without actually having a subject to make fun of. Nothing matters – the weight of morality and immorality that existed in the original is non-existent here. The filmmakers seem to think that this is half-comedy, half-thriller, but the acting is so over-the-top all the time that the film seems to be about people walking, sneaking and riding from place to another, for no reason other than the plot putting them there. These characters don’t seem to be very motivated by anything.
When I first heard that Zhang Yimou decided to remake the Coen Brothers’ ‘Blood Simple’, my reaction was -and I quote- “Huh?” followed by “Why?” Now that I’ve seen the film- called ‘A Woman, A Gun and A Noodle Shop’, I say again- “Huh?” followed by “why?” It is a bafflingly useless film that seems to be in a rush to get absolutely nothing done. It is not thrilling, not very funny, not exciting, not satiric, not parodic…not anything. I could find no logic in why or how this film was made. Apparently, Zhang liked a couple of images from ‘Blood Simple’ so much that he wanted to direct his own very similar versions.
‘A Woman, a Gun and a Noodle Shop’ is an inside joke that I hope others are in on, because it did little but baffle and annoy me.
SHLOMO PORATH
