With a remake of the Coen-brothers’ debut Blood Simple, director Zhang Yimou has displaced the action to a historical China. A Woman, a Gun and a Noodle Shop features a love triangle, set in the desert province of Gansu. Old Wang runs a noodle restaurant with his wife and their three employees – one of which is also his wife’s lover. The action starts when his wife buys a gun from a traveling arms dealer, and spins out of control from that point on. The film is somewhat of a departure from the more serious tone of Yimou’s earlier works, with both slapstick humor and choreographed acrobatic sequences, but after the antics of the beginning the sombre tone soon returns. hh