The 30th Atlantic Film Festival “This is nothing like BLOOD SIMPLE,” I thought, as Zhang Yimou’s remake of the Coen Brothers’ first film began. I mean, it opens with a gaudily-dressed Persian pirouetting around with a fancy sword , dicing up random things in the noodle shop and generally shocking the hell out of the collection of buffoons who worked there. This scene is shot like a pastiche of the overly-choreographed action in Yimou’s better-known (in North America) films, HERO and HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS (action scenes which are practically pastiche already). It’s incredibly fast and hard to follow, and
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