Being familiar with several of director Yimou Zhang's movies (THE CURSE OF THE GOLDEN FLOWER, HERO, and HOUSE OF THE FLYING DAGGERS), I was frankly surprised at how restrained A WOMAN, A GUN AND A NOODLE SHOP turned out to be- but I should've known better: unlike American filmmakers (who, generally speaking, lack the savvy to do more than a single type of movie- if that), foreign filmmakers tend to be extremely versatile (Takashi Miike springs to mind). The movie is far better than the source material (the movie BLOOD SIMPLE), which serves to point up the very thing that I mentioned. Old Wang is hilarious, as are the adulterous couple (one of whom happens to be Wang's beautiful young wife), and the crooked lawman he engages to do his dirty work. All too often, dumbed down American versions of superior foreign films are released in this country; rarely, indeed, do we find superior foreign versions of average (at best) American movies.
Review of A Woman, a Gun and a Noodle Shop
