Did you know that Yimou Zhang remade the Coen Brothers' "Blood
Simple" in China? In some quarters it's known as "Yimou Zhang's Blood
Simple" while elsewhere it has been rechristened "A Woman, A Gun and a
Noodle Shop". Yimou, of course, was at one time a director to be
reckoned with, perhaps more famous internationally than even the Coens
are now, (his "Raise the Red Lantern" is one of the masterpieces of
world cinema), so we had every right to have had high hopes of this remake
of what was a brilliant, if minor, Coen Brothers classic.
Unfortunately, this is much closer to a black farce with none of the
terror of the first "Blood Simple". 
Visually it's a terrific looking film, which is as we might expect from
its director. Few directors in the history of cinema have used colour
as expressively as Yimou but there's no substance here. This is just a
piece of pulp fiction Chinese-style with the comedy falling flat and the
suspense singularly lacking. Today the Coen Brothers' film is now
considered one of the great debuts in American film and it will be
remembered as such long after this is forgotten.
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