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Derek ELLEY is Chief Film Critic of Film Bussiness Asia. Elley has been writing about East Asian cinema for almost 40 years,especially Chinese-language films,and has arranged numerous seasons and tributes both in the UK, at London\'s National Film Theatre,and elsewhere, at Washington\'s American Film Institute. In 1998 he co-founded the Far East Film Festival, in Udine, Italy, devoted to mainstream Asian cinema.
Ning Hao\'s first released film in three years, GUNS AND ROSES finds the 35-year-old director in somewhat mellower mood than in his previous caper comedies CRAZY STONE and CRAZY RACER, though the film has the same kind of black humour, rough northern wit, twisty-turny plotting, and exaggerated characters. Apart from being Ning\'s first period movie, and with a much more regular studio-style look, the major difference from his CRAZY comedies is the pacing, which is much less frantic, and the underlying message that greed is not good when the country\'s well-being is at stake.
Simply by having Lei Jiayin— a good-looking, 28-year-old TV actor—instead of goofy regular Huang Bo play the main character of a money-obsessed petty thief, GUNS AND ROSES becomes a much less manic movie. And though the plot has plenty of incident and reversals, it doesn\'t have the same kind of complex, corkscrew construction as the earlier two films.
In its early stages, GUNS AND ROSES looks like being a fun but pretty conventional gold-heist movie set in the mid/late 1930s. In its well-constructed first half-hour the script gradually steers the lead, amoral thief Xiao Dongbei, towards the kernel of the plot as it carefully sets up supporting characters who will come into play later: a local priest, dryly played by comedian Fan Wei; Xiao Dongbei\'s crazed father, a onetime Boxer Rebellion hero who still has a pigtail (Guo Tao, unrecognisable from CRAZY STONE); a corrupt police chief (Liu Hua, wittily stone-faced); and so on. There\'s even a cameo from Huang, in a sequence set in a cinema which lays a seed for the subsequent appearance of the film-making revolutionaries once the main plot of the gold heist finally moves into view.
The actual robbery takes place around the hour mark, with at least another half-hour after that of more plot and a grand finale which introduces yet more people. Ning and his writers haven\'t mastered the trick of drawing involving characters and mood alongside a busy plot.
The film is at its best in more intimate, two-handed scenes (such as Lei and Fan) and splashy action sequences (like the finale). Individual gags, however, are generally inventive — especially one involving a way to hide out in a church, and another involving Xiao Dongbei\'s wandering hands at a dinner-party. Throughout, Lei, in his first leading role on the big screen, is impressive, with an easy, likeable innocence that contrasts with the rougher types who surround him.