By Michele Scrimenti
BEIJING, Dec. 15 -- When I first heard that Zhang Yimou, China's leading director most well-known for Hero in the West, was remaking the Coen Brothers' first film, Blood Simple, a question immediately sprung to my mind: Would A Simple Noodle Story be directed by the good Zhang Yimou or the bad Zhang Yimou? The answer: neither.
Starting with his first stint as a cinematographer on Yellow Earth right after graduating from film school in the early 80s, everything Zhang shot was inspired. In the late 80s and early 90s, he directed several movies already considered classics, including the banned To Live.
Then bad Zhang Yimou arrived. The Rashomon-like historical epic Hero, starring Jet Li, broke box office records overseas for a Chinese mainland-produced movie and Zhang has been focused on making martial arts-driven artless flicks to keep the wads of cash pouring in ever since.
A Simple Noodle Story is a break from that international blockbuster path, which ended disastrously with the barely-watchable Curse of the Golden Flower in 2007.
Noodle, set in the late Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), follows several entertaining characters working in a restaurant in the remote, but naturally beautiful, western province of Gansu. Unlike the Coens' original, which is noirish and at times gravely serious, Zhang opted for comedy and pulled it off. Sort of.
Zhang brought together a band of popular comedic actors led by Xiao Shenyang, who shot to fame earlier this year because of his hilarious gender-bending antics.
Shenyang's character, Li Si, is having an affair with his boss's wife, who is simply called "Boss' Wife" throughout the movie. The beginning of the movie is nonstop laughs as Shenyang and Boss' wife shoot quick one-liners back and forth and perform flawless slapstick routines. (Many of the jokes in this section are puns and plays on words that don't sound funny in English.)
Then the drama starts to kick in. The boss is not happy about his wife "going off the rails" and he hires a soldier, Zhang San, to bump them off. Zhang San is portrayed by Sun Honglei (Mongol), who plays an emotionless hitman to a tee. When Zhang San's plan goes awry, the movie attempts to move into serious gear, but Zhang Yimou can't bear with leaving the comedy behind (or perhaps his actors' abilities wouldn't permit him) and this is where the movie breaks down.
While the Coens are masters at interspersing even the darkest of subjects with some levity, Zhang lets the slapstick get out of hand, essentially spoiling any suspense that the thrilling plot line should have created. As Li Si and other characters continue to bump their heads and fall over even after people start getting killed, any sense of gravity is knocked out of the plot and the deaths of unidimensional comedians become irrelevant.
To his credit, Zhang, even when he's bad Zhang, always pays attention to color and Noodle is no different. The gorgeous desert scenery is contrasted with bright lively costumes. Li Si is clothed in outrageous pink, playing off Shenyang's previous cross-dressing fame, Boss's Wife wears vibrant light green and hitman Zhang San dons a smart dark blue.
So which Zhang Yimou showed up to shoot Noodle? The movie was indeed entertaining, unlike bad Zhang's efforts but unfortunately, it wasn't at the artistic caliber of good Zhang either. For now we'll have to make do with his new incarnation, fun Zhang.
Oodles of noodles cashing in at the box office
Zhang Yimou's latest production A Simple Noodle Story, which started national screening Friday, is already reaping in the dough, scoring a total box office revenue of 67.1 million yuan ($9.83 million) by Sunday morning and is expecting its first weekend to reach 100 million yuan ($14.65 million).
The film earned 11.1 million yuan ($1.63 million) in prescreening Thursday night and another 21 million yuan ($3.08 million) Friday when it premiered on 4,600 screens across the country. With Saturday's box office exceeding 35 million yuan ($5.13 million), the film's producer Zhang Weiping claimed that the first weekend box office is likely to reach 100 million yuan ($14.65 million).
In spite of the box office success, the film has received mixed reviews. Most local media acknowledged Zhang's success in entertaining the public, but writer and critic Han Han wrote in his blog that A Simple Noodle Story is more like a lengthened TV comedy sketch and that Zhang has made no improvement in terms of directing since his first film.
Some parents have complained about the racy second half and sex-related puns, which they say are too much for children.
In his defense, Zhang said that he was just trying to have fun with the film. "I'm not a master of artistic films. I'm just trying to make a fun movie."
(Source: Global Times)
