"Hero" director remakes Coen Brothers' "Blood Simple"

It looks amazing. The Coen brothers 1984 debut feature Blood Simple is a hard movie to show up. Set in a gritty rural Texan town, it's as pulse-quickening and shocking as any thriller about cowboys and contract killers. It gets surprisingly violent for a movie - even an indie - from 1984. But sweet, sweet violence: thy name is the Coen brothers.

Zhang Yimou (Hero, House of Flying Dagger) updated the Coens' neo-country-noir classic with an excellent twist: transplant it from the backwoods of Texas to a tiny Mandarin noodle shop, and A Woman, A Gun, and a Noodle Shop is born. It looks beautiful and slick - a departure from Blood Simple which was beautiful (in its own bloody way) but gave you the impression that there was sand under your nails the entire film.

Finally. Mainstream moviegoers will finally get what they want: A Coen brothers' movie about marital infidelity set in a Chinese noodle shop. Audiences win!