About A Woman, a Gun and a Noodle Shop

The USC School of Cinematic Arts will host a preview event to showcase one of the official selections of the 2010 Berlin Film Festival.

Official Selection: 2010 Berlin Film Festival

In Theatres on Friday, September 3rd, 2010

Wang is a miserable yet cunning noodle shop owner in a desert town in China. Feeling neglected, Wang's wife secretly goes out with Li, one of his employees. A timid man, Li reluctantly keeps the gun the landlady bought for 'killing her husband later'. However, not a single move they make escapes the boss' notice, 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 cruel but satisfying end... or so he thinks, but the equally wicked Zhang has an agenda of his own that will lead to even more violence...

A Woman, a Gun and a Noodle Shop is a remake of the 1985 directorial debut of Joel and Ethan Coen, Blood Simple. Transposing the Coen Brother's celebrated mix of dark humor and riveting suspense to China, the film is helmed by Zhang Yimou (director of The Red Sorghum, To Live, Hero, House of Flying Daggers and other masterpieces), one of the most eminent directors of the "Fifth Generation". This black comedy thriller is an exposé of how intense desires can consume humanity, and the irony that life never submits to our calculations.

35mm print provided courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics.

In Chinese (Mandarin), with English subtitles. Rated R. Running time: 95 minutes.

Director's Statement

I love all the works by the Coen Brothers. Some twenty years ago at a film festival, I saw their directorial debut Blood Simple, which left me with a great impression. The film keeps coming back to my mind, although I haven't seen it for a second time.

One day, a curious idea struck me: what would it be like if Blood Simple was made as a Chinese story? That was how A Woman, a Gun and a Noodle Shop began to take shape.

I gave the remake a rich Chinese flavor, casting Xiao Shenyang – a young comic actor who recently shot to fame in China – to add in a sense of farcical humor at the beginning. The fun soon turns into riveting suspense. I also adopted the aesthetic style of the old Chinese opera piece, San Cha Kou. The result is the confinement of all the characters within the same space, each of them shifting roles with one another and making similar mistakes. This lays bare the absurdity of life – something ironically repetitive, always beyond our control.

I would like to thank all of the actors for their wonderful performances. I truly appreciate the effort and commitment of every member of the crew.

-- Zhang Yimou