A WOMAN, A GUN AND A NOODLE SHOP

Year: 2009
USA: Sony Pictures Classics
UK:
Cast: Sun Honglei, Xiao Shenyang, Yan Ni, Ni Dahong, Cheng Ye, Mao Mao, Zhao Benshan
Director: Zhang Yimou
Country: China
Language: Mandarin (English subtitles)
USA: 95 mins
UK: mins
USA Rated: R for some violence
UK Certificate:
USA Release Date: 3 September 2010 (Limited Release - New York and Los Angeles)
UK Release Date:

Official UK website

Synopsis

From the director of HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS and HERO, Zhang Yimou presents a remake of the 1985 directorial debut of the Coen Brothers film, BLOOD SIMPLE. A WOMAN, A GUN AND A NOODLE SHOP transposes their celebrated mix of dark humour and riveting suspense to China. This black comedy thriller is an expose of how intense desires can consume humanity, and the irony that life never submits to our calculations.

Wang is a dejected yet cunning owner of a noodle shop in a desert town in China. Feeling neglected, Wang's wife starts to secretly meet Li, one of his employees, after wrork. Li, though timid, reluctantly keeps the gun the landlady bought for 'killing her husband later'.

Nothing escapes the eagle eye of the owner who has noticed what his wife has been up to, and he decides to bribe patrol officer Zhang to kill the illicit couple. It looks like a perfect plan: the affair will come to a brutal but satisfying end... or so he thinks. What he is unaware of is that the equally wicked Zhang has an agenda of his own that will lead to even more violence...

Official Selection: 2010 Berlin Film Festival