The Playlist:
With the Asian film market looking to put out blockbusters that can stand tall next to American behemoths, there occasionally comes a picture that owes as much to Sergio Leone as it does to, say, Michael Bay or Ridley Scott. Jiang Wen’s “Let The Bullets Fly” revels in breathtaking, breakneck pacing but still manages to feel like an absolute slog at 132 minutes, the middle weighing the film down to the point of viewer exhaustion. That said, “Bullets” is fit to stand in the company of Kim Ji-woon's triumphantly manic “The Good, the Bad, the Weird,” a film that is more stylish at the expense of character development, which Wen’s film piles on in swaths of intertwining dialogue delivered at a machine gun pace. It's not Atlman, to be sure, but it still feels more alive than tough guys in trench coats spitting words at each other across a godforsaken, arid landscape.
When I see that Chow Yun Fat is in a movie I just want to see it. I have always liked his work. He hasn't been in many lately. This I would like to see.