Let the bullets fly

Great film comedies demand at least two screenings. The second is needed to check if one missed a visual joke or cinematic reference while still giggling over and/or trying to fully comprehend an engrossing sight gag, farcical set-piece, non-sequitor or wild slapstick scene. I suspect Let The Bullets Fly may need a third viewing, because it's one of modern China's cleverest send-ups of, and salutations to, a host of film comventions. It's also devilishly complex.

An honest bandit chief has six lieutenants, two of whom are gay and one a virgin. A fake provincial governor pretends to be his own dead counsellor, thus obliging his wife to sleep with the bandit. Both the men gang up to outwit Goose Town's master criminal, who employs a retarded double as his stand-in and lives in one of the southern China's landmark multi-storied Western-style citadels.

Those bare bones of an early 20th Century dimsum Western (that's also a black comedy and morality tale) are fleshed out with visual delights, such as the governor's deluxe railway train being driven along its tracks by a team of white horses; fifty geese and no townsfolk following the heroes to confront the gangster; a dozen gunmen enduring a mass stand-off because they're all wearing the same mask; a gunman accused of eating two jellies cutting open his stomach to prove that he only ate one.

There are quotations from and tributes to a host of other Western films, in both meanings of the term from oaters and Eastwood to Patton and crime noir. Asian films get nods too, from kung fu epics to Kurosawa and Kitano. Very visibly, but not pretentiously, writer-director Wen Jiang clearly had enormous fun adapting a Sichuanese writer's original story and giving himself the role of the honourable bandit. His co-stars clearly shared his gleeful mood, with Ge You (the conniving pseudo-governor) and Chow Yun-fat (the evil grinning gangster and his idiot double) twisting their cheeks and laughing maniacally while still portraying credible dramatic personae.

The supporting cast is excellent too, and it's tempting to rave about another commercial success from the multi-talented Jiang (including In the Heat of the Sun, Devils on the Doorstep, and The Sun Also Rises as writer-director, Red Sorghum, Black Snow and The Soong Sisters for acting). Shrewdly issuing his movie in Sichuanese as well as Putonghua, he produced an all-time box-office triumph in China in 2010 (grossing more than US$100 million).

Movie industry insiders usually preferring art-house fare, the only Asian Films award it won was for costume design (Hong Kong designer and director William Chang). The grand big-screen cinematography wasn't even nominated, but veteran Zhao Fei, who's worked with top Chinese New Wave directors (and three times with Woody Allen) doesn't need recognition.

Most admirably, a Chinese movie seen by millions can also be seen as a quilt of sly anti-governmental anti-sloganese humanity that slipped past Beijing's censors.

This is another movie whose top rating may be reviewed downward after a second viewing, when unalloyed admiration for its audacity and flair have mellowed. I hope not.