Choose Your Coen Adventure
03. Sep, 2010 
1 Comment
A Woman, A Gun and A Noodle Shop
(San Qiang Pai An Jing Qi)
Romancing The Coens
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
It takes a lot of balls to remake a revered and belovededed film. Usually the remaker isn’t even close to worthy of such an undertaking, and their results are closer to more worthlessnessness than opening a Woolworth’s Five & Dime. Even done up by the hands of someone more accomplished, and James Worthy, there’s no guarantee that they can make a remake work. Remember Gus van Sant’s take on Psycho? We certainly hope not!!!! Remember the Coen Bros’ Ladykillers? You get the idea. Speaking of… afer seeing The Coen Bros‘ Blood Simple at Cannes twnetyish years ago, (worthy) Zhang Yimou (House of Flying Daggers) thought about giving the same story a go, but change the time and place, and add his usual flair and spin of the color wheel. Amazingly, the Coens’ OKed the idea and what we have here is A Woman, A Gun and A Noodle Shop
If you’ve seen Blood Simple, then you purty much know what to expect (an über-jealous bidness man’s wife is stepping out on him with one of his employees, so said bidness man hires someone to bump them off, but the hired gun doesn’t kill em, AND THEN…), and if you haven’t seen BS, then you have no real reason or incentive to see Noodle, you noodle-head!! But if you HAVE seen it, then you can certainly give its eastern brother from another mother a whirl (walk, don’t run)! And while the pacing and atmosphere are kept in tact (but somehow feels a little slower than Simple), the style is all its own, with a dash of hit or miss humor. It’s kinda worth seeing juss for Zhao Benshan‘s brief, yet unforgettable appearance as a googly-eyed police captain. LOOK AT THIS FACE!!!!! Maybe they shoulda scrapped the whole remake idea and made a flick all about his character, doing like Chinese Keystone Kop shaz with like chop sticks and ninja stars or any other Asian stereotypes one could think of!!!
North American Scum: remakes of American films are rarer than a rare steak cooked with the juice from the back of that upside-down plane stamp, but nones of them will ever top the blatant rip offs that are Turkish Star Wars or Bollywood Superman!!!!
Verdictgo: Jeepers Worth A Peepers, but only for superfans of Blood Simple
Noodle goes slurp in NY/LA only this Friday
and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…
