Let the Bullets Fly
Director: Jiang Wen
Year: 2010
Rating: 8.0
After finally giving up on Hollywood, Chow Yun
Fat made his way back to Hong Kong ready to get back to work. If nothing
else, his time in Hollywood was financially beneficial. Now he could be very
selective and he was still enormously popular back home. Since returning
he has been choosy about the films he appears in and in eleven years has
made some thirteen films. I had seen none of them till this one. It was one
of his first since he took up his career again seriously. It is a wonderful
choice in a terrifically clever movie that hovers unsteadily between black
comedy, satire and absurdity with a simmering tension that floats continuously
underneath. As Huang he runs Goose Town, a peculiar little place that never
feels real from his fortress on a hill to the inhabitants who we rarely see.
It is a great character - part caricature, part seething with insanity. A
big smile on his face with menace in his eyes as he clenches his teeth in
a manic grin of fury or frustration. Very different from anything else he
had made up to this point. Not heroic but villainous with charisma and charm
like a cobra raising its hood. You can't take your eyes off him. Yet it is
a comedy though it honestly took me a while to realize that.
And he is matched by an equally great performance from Jiang Wen, one of
China's best actors. The two of them face off constantly in a bout of threats,
guns pointed at each other and clever verbal play. Though the title is Let
the Bullets Fly there isn't really nearly as much shooting as there is conversing.
The film runs 132 minutes and though it constantly shifts its mood and style
it is still far too long. It is like the director, also Jiang Wen, just could
not edit out characters or scenes to tighten it up. He loved it all and in
truth though intellectually I can say - take out the sub-plot with the girl
or the visits to the grave or the many interchanges between Counsellor Ma
(Ge You, also a fabulous performance) and Zhang (Jiang Wen), I liked them
all but I was glad I could take a break at the hour mark.
This takes place in the 1920s during the rule of the Republic. Bandit Zhang
and his group of six men hijack a train by overturning it that kills everyone
aboard except Ma and his calculating wife (Carina Lau). Ma is a conman going
to Goose Town pretending to be the newly appointed Governor where he hopes
to reap some riches. When Zhang realizes this he instead takes on the role
of the Governor with Ma as his Counsellor. They are welcomed by women in
red cheongsams beating drums like cheerleaders. This was my first hint not
to take the film too seriously. He immediately comes into conflict with Huang
but it is a wary conflict - Huang isn't sure if he is a real Governor and
Zhang has to figure out how to take his money. It becomes an intricate chess
match with parries and blocks. When one of Zhang's men is accused of eating
two plates of jelly but only paying for one, he proves it by cutting his
stomach open and spilling the jelly into a bowl and says see I told you.
That was another hint that this bordered on the absurd. Not to mention the
Kung Fu Hustle moment when a person is kicked off a large drum only to be
bounced back to be kicked again.
The tonal shifts in the film can throw you off or you can just jump it. A
few lovely straight out comedic bits as well. Huang has a double who he is
trying to train to act and talk like him - in an Abbott and Costello routine
he keeps telling his double to shut up and the double says "shut up" and
Huang gets more and more frustrated that he won't shut up. Played also by
Chow Yun-fat but just off enough to make him comical. In another bit Zhang
asks his men if they were involved in a gang rape - one says you know I am
a loner, another says he is a virgin. another that he would have raped the
man and so on. Like I say tonal shifts. I was reading a few reviews from
the Western press and many of them hated this film such as one critic that
wrote "Overwritten script, ugly visuals, queasy rape humour, feeble special
effects and all-round incoherence" or "It's satire of sorts, but broad, confused,
extremely talkative and interminable." or "Fans of the genre may enjoy the
bizarre humor. But, the story seemed never-ending to me." Ok. But I thought
it was brilliant. If too long. Music from Joe Hisaishi.
