A SIMPLE NOODLE STORY Review

In a spectacular departure from his previous work, the acclaimed, praised and more recently criticized director Zhang Yimou brings to the screen a period remake of the Coen Brothers' 1984 debut, BLOOD SIMPLE. Transplanting the action from a Texas bar to an isolated noodle restaurant in the deserts of northern China, A SIMPLE NOODLE STORY is otherwise surprisingly faithful to the source material. 

Boss Wang (Ni Dahong) is the miserly proprietor of the aforementioned eaterie, whose wife, played by Yan Ni, he suspects is having an affair with wimpish employee Li (Xiao Shenyang). He hires a corrupt police officer, Zhang (Sun Hunglei) first to confirm his wife's infidelity and then to kill the two lovers. Zhang, however, has his own scheming agenda - which leads to betrayal, mayhem and murder.

Giving the story a more comedic twist this time out, greatly aided by the addition of a pair of imbecilic employees intent on recouping their withheld earnings and a suspicious boggle-eyed police chief, the film nevertheless embraces the darker elements of the story too. 


There are many laughs to be had throughout, as well as an impressive noodle spinning sequence early on, choreographed to Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries. Inevitably, the large spinning discs of noodle dough do begin to emit the sound of helicopter rotor blades, but this is a solitary nod to Western audiences in a film of otherwise broad, overtly Chinese humour.

The second half take a deliberate shift into darker territory, as those already familiar with the story will know, and while handled effectively in its own right, it does lose some of the energy generated in the breakneck pacing of the first half.

That said, the film must certainly be deemed a success, both as an experimentation for the director, as an adaptation of Blood Simple and as a screwball comedy in its own right. Zhang has obviously taken a page out of director Ning Hao's comedic playbook, while retaining his love of period costume and vibrant visual sensibility. Without a doubt, he wants the film to be regarded as a light-hearted affair, a sentiment underscored by the full-cast song and dance routine that accompanies the closing credits.

The performances in A SIMPLE NOODLE STORY are writ large, with Xiao Shenyang especially theatrical as the lover. In an amusing twist he has actually grown tired of Yan Ni's bullying primadonna and is on the verge of ending the affair, but is scared stiff not only of Wang discovering their tryst, but of the wife's reaction when she learns he's dumping her. Yan plays the unnamed wife as the same loud, abrasive, forthright woman we have seen her play before, while Ni Dahong ensures Wang is unlikable enough to never earn the audience's sympathy. The film really belongs to Sun Hunglei, however, who is brilliantly understated as the scheming, double-crossing Zhang, barely uttering a word throughout the entire film, while becoming increasingly influential in almost everything that transpires. His dance moves during the closing credits are not to be missed, either.

Visually the film is eye popping to the degree of being almost offensive, with the garish primary colours of each character's costume resplendent against the beige surroundings. Stylistically, A SIMPLE NOODLE STORY recalls those early Coen-Sonnenfeld collaborations, particularly RAISING ARIZONA, shooting often in close-up with wide-angle lenses and displaying epic desert vistas beneath clear blue skies. 

To those who criticized Zhang for cashing in on rehashed Chinese folktales for an ill-informed Western audience, A SIMPLE NOODLE STORY adds a new string to his bow and clearly proves there's life in the old dog yet. It requires genuine talent to take such a quintessentially American piece of noir pulp fiction and transform it into something that feels this fresh and fun and, even in the moments where it doesn't quite hold together, so quintessentially Chinese.

Cross published in bc Magazine (Hong Kong)