San qiang pai an jing qi 2009

Keith Uhlich, Time Out: So this is how you follow up the Olympic opening ceremonies! Read more

John Hartl, Seattle Times: Whereas the Coens worked with a shoestring budget and emphasized a deadpan sense of humor, Zhang pours on expensive special effects whenever the opportunity for large-scale slapstick presents itself. Read more

Keith Phipps, AV Club: The film is all over the place, really, until the plot kicks in, at which point Zhang hits the dimmer and plunges everyone into darkness, even a pair of characters seemingly on hand purely for comic relief. Read more

Richard Nilsen, Arizona Republic: It takes real chutzpah to challenge the Coen brothers when it comes to stylization in movies, but Chinese director Zhang Yimou has done just that. Read more

Wesley Morris, Boston Globe: Zhang's version dries out the original's sultriness, trades humid night for arid day, and strains for slapstick. Read more

J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader: An uneasy mix of Coen-style laughs (particularly evident in the big comic close-ups) and Zhang's majestic imagery (in one shot the couple's divorce papers shatter into a burst of confetti). Read more

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: A Woman, a Gun and a Noodle Shop is 95 minutes of not right. Read more

Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: Zhang needs to reconnect with the sensibility -- fierce, principled, humanistic -- that made him one of China's finest film artists. Read more

David Hines, Dallas Morning News: The movie soon devolves into nothing more than a fairly close-to-the-vest adaptation. Read more

Tom Long, Detroit News: Heaven knows what inspired Zhang to undertake this nutty project, but the results are, at the least, amusing. Read more

Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: Lacks the Coen brothers' precision, their diabolical game-board cleverness. It's a remake in shaggy outline only. Read more

Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald: A whimsical but fizzled experiment. Read more

A.O. Scott, New York Times: Mr. Zhang uncovers the primal, mythic intensity of the story and also changes the tone of its essential nihilism. Read more

Carrie Rickey, Philadelphia Inquirer: For the Coens, the parable of lust and greed suggested that nothing was certain but death and the battle of the sexes. For Yimou, it's a ghost story of sexual lust and money lust. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: There are lots of vertiginous high angles and sweeping wide-screen vistas, but they never congeal into a compelling atmosphere. Read more

G. Allen Johnson, San Francisco Chronicle: A Woman, a Gun and a Noodle Shop is an easy film to watch and admire, but a hard one to connect with, let alone love. Read more

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: It's all wrong. Each creative choice in the new version undermines the original film's appeal, a collision of incompatible visions. Read more

Christopher Orr, The Atlantic: In Blood Simple, the cascading confusions lead to moral solitude and death; in Noodle Shop, the foremost misunderstanding involves a character who mistakes the phrase 'must die' for 'moose die.' Read more

Stephen Cole, Globe and Mail: A Woman, a Gun and a Noodle Shop is great to look at. It's just not much fun to watch. Read more

Geoff Pevere, Toronto Star: A Woman, A Gun and a Noodle Shop is a tipsy wedding of low hijinks and tiptoe-tense suspense stretches. Read more

Derek Elley, Variety: Read more

Nick Pinkerton, Village Voice: Those with a higher tolerance for bumptious jestering -- from a yipping and mincing Xiao, or Cheng Ye as a bucktoothed jelly-belly -- may, however, cry Masterpiece. Read more

Stephanie Merry, Washington Post: Don't attempt to remake a Coen brothers movie, especially if you plan to turn the thing into a bizarre concoction of melodrama and slapstick comedy. Read more