Over last Christmas break, I was talking to my dad about the Coen Brothers’ remake of True Grit. He made the comment that it didn’t feel like a typical Coen Brothers movie. I disagree, but I see where he was coming from. Mention the Coen Brothers and most people will think of Raising Arizona, Fargo, The Big Lebowski and Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?, films populated by broad characters but tempered by a dry, often quite dark, sense of humor. But the brothers have also crafted a parallel filmography of relatively straight-faced, noir-tinged thrillers. The precedent for True Grit can be found in past outings like Miller’s Crossing, No Country for Old Men, The Man Who Wasn’t There and Blood Simple. Most of these pictures do have their little gags – True Grit has its Bear Man – but their relation to the brothers’ comedies is one of philosophy, not of tone.
Ah, but what if someone were to remake one of those serious crime dramas but, you know, Coens it up a bit? Thus A Woman, a Gun and a Noodle Shop, Chinese director Zhang Yimou’s recasting of the Coens’ debut Blood Simple as a wacky farce. Zhang cranks the Laff-o-Meter so hard that the needle soars past the goofier likes of Burn After Reading and The Ladykillers and pings straight into Manic Jerry Lewis territory. Curiously, Zhang decided to reverse the Coens’ direction, making every performance larger than life except the one by M. Emmet Walsh’s analogue. One character’s eyes are permanently crossed; another’s overbite is so exaggerated that acrylic nails appear to have been glued to his front teeth. A husband cuts out the face of a picture of a baby and forces his wife to pretend to be the son they never had. What might sound deliciously weird on paper reads, in practice, as desperation.
I’m avoiding describing the plot, not because I want to avoid spoiling A Woman, a Gun and a Noodle Shop but because I want to avoid spoiling Blood Simple. It’s the premise that launched a thousand noirs – a man suspects his wife of cheating on him and hires a detective to prove it – but the Coens tossed a few wrenches that veer the story into unexpected directions. Zhang may have broadened the tone and moved the setting to 19th Century China, but in terms of story, his take hews tediously close to the original. Noodle Shop romps perfunctorily from plot point to plot point, with none of the suspense or artistry that makes Blood Simple endlessly rewatchable. (Strangely, given his strict fidelity to the source material, the one scene Zhang doesn’t replicate is arguably the original’s most iconic.) If you’ve seen Blood Simple, you’ll be bored; if you haven’t, you owe it to yourself to see the story told with some style. As Blood Simple‘s Meurice might say, A Woman, a Gun and a Noodle Shop is the same old song, but with a different (much less interesting) meaning.
Look, Sally, Look 