Let the Bullets Fly (Jiang Wen, 2010)

[Michael Kerpan]

Most entertaining modern (large-scale) action film I've seen (Johnnie To's stuff tends to be much more small-scaled). Lots of inspiration from Kurosawa. A bandit comes to town, masquerading as its new governor. Finding the populace cowed by a corrupt gang boss, he and his gang set to cleaning things up. A bit too violent for me at times, but mostly good fun -- and with a good heart (sort of like Sanjuro). The leads are phenomenal -- three of China's best actors: Jiang himself (as hero), CHOW Yun-Fat (as villain) and GE you (as a reluctant helper of the hero).

This film wound up being mainland China's all-time (for now) box office hit. Apparently this has recently been picked up for at least limited US distribution (no details available on when this might show up).

Great looking HK BluRay is Region A, supplements are on Region 3 DVD, everything is subbed).

A great review by Shelly Kraicer and some remarks by David Bordwell.

[Finch]

I've been thinking for some time about picking this up possibly. Might take too long to show up on Scottish shores so instead of a rental, I may blind-buy.

[masterofoneinchpunch]

I'm looking forward to this though I'm a little tired of the recent big budget action films I've seen from Mainland (or HK/Mainland coproductions) like Bodyguards and Assassins (2009: Teddy Chan), Legend of the Fist: The Return of Chen Zhen (2010: Andrew Lau Wai-keung) and several others from the past few years.

[Michael Kerpan]

Jiang's work (in this film, as in all his others) is at least an order of magnitude more interesting than that of low-grade (but sometimes lucky) hacks like Andrew Lau (not familiar with the work of Teddy Chan).

BTW -- the cinematographer here has great prior credits -- ZHAO Fei has worked before with Jiang, as well as with ZHANG Yimou, FENG Xiaogang, CHEN Kaige and Woody Allen (among others). And the score is courtesy of Jo Hisaishi.

[Finch]

Bullets sounds interesting enough but the one Jiang film I really want to see is 2000's DEVILS ON THE DOORSTEP (there is a HVE disc of it).

[zedz]

Yeah, I found this film really enjoyable, mostly because Jiang Wen and Chow Yun Fat have authentic movie star charisma to burn and they're having a ball in this film. There's some egregious CGI in the first sequence that has you fearing the worst, but the rest of the film relies on much more traditional pleasures. It's a big step down in terms of ambition from Jiang's Devils on the Doorstep, but it works beautifully on its own terms.

[Michael Kerpan]

With the exception of one early sequence (where CGI was surely unavoidable), most of the film seemed to be done the "old-fashioned way".

[Anhedionisiac]

I saw this as well and I have to admit I kind of found it a chore to sit though, plot-wise.
The manic gags and rat-a-tat two-shot editing in dialogue scenes (which I think probably work better when you're hearing the dialogue instead of reading it subtitled) are amusing but if I managed to hold on it's entirely thanks to Chow and Jiang Wen, who still manage to amaze me with their tremendous amount of charisma, especially considering how corny the material they work with tends to be.
What I found especially intriguing is how their charisma relates to each other: Jiang Wen shines on scenes where he's mostly by himself whereas Chow asserts himself by dominating whenever he finds himself sharing the screen with someone else. Jiang burns brightly from the start but somehow can begin to lie down if we hold on for too long with him, whereas Chow doesn't make that strong an impression at first but, given a partner to play off from, shines more and more with each passing moment. This can, of course, for the most part be a result of the script since their scenes together call for that kind of tête à tête but, still, it's rather interesting.

[bigP]

Finch, don't hesitate to see Devil's on the Doorstep, it's a great piece of filmmaking and the HVE is very good. I've only caught Devils and Jiang Wen's contribution to New York I Love You - which I enjoyed far more than most of the contributions - but these couple of films (and the response on this page) have raised this up to a must-see.