Kurt Loder on Let the Bullets Fly
Let the Bullets Fly is unapologetically an old-school western of the John Ford variety, writes Kurt Loder. The remote town in which the tale is set has a distinctively Asian architectural cast, but the dusty main street running through it lacks only hitching posts to be entirely familiar, and a requisite bordello is among the buildings fronting on it. A rowdy teahouse stands in for the customary barroom. And of course just about everyone is armed. So the genre trappings are strictly traditional. But what director Jiang Wen has really created here is a comedy of the most demented sort. The story is preposterously knotty, filled with double-dealings, doubled characters, murky disputes over bowls of jelly, and bloody disembowelings played for laughs. You can almost hear how the writers must have chortled as they slapped this thing together.
Hide Comments (0)
Editor's Note: As of February 29, 2024, commenting privileges on reason.com posts are limited to Reason Plus subscribers. Past commenters are grandfathered in for a temporary period. Subscribe here to preserve your ability to comment. Your Reason Plus subscription also gives you an ad-free version of reason.com, along with full access to the digital edition and archives of Reason magazine. We request that comments be civil and on-topic. We do not moderate or assume any responsibility for comments, which are owned by the readers who post them. Comments do not represent the views of reason.com or Reason Foundation. We reserve the right to delete any comment and ban commenters for any reason at any time. Comments may only be edited within 5 minutes of posting. Report abuses.
Please
to post commentsMute this user?
Ban this user?
Un-ban this user?
Nuke this user?
Un-nuke this user?
Flag this comment?
Un-flag this comment?