Zhou Xiao Wen's tawdry human comedy about keeping up with, and preferably ahead of, the Joneses (or their Chinese counterparts). The hard-driving, humorless heroine, a roadside vendor of homemade twisty noodles (who refuses to negotiate with customers: "Fair price!"), is determined to obtain a bigger television set -- twenty-nine-inch screen -- than that of her contentious neighbor: even when she lands a lucrative position in the kitchen of a gourmet restaurant, she continues to augment her wages by selling her blood. The one-of-a-kind character is stamped in memory in fine-point detail: kneading the lump of noodle dough with her feet, deft as a soccer player, or spitting on her thumb to count her cash, or sporting a racy new brassiere for an extramarital tryst. (1994) — Duncan Shepherd
This movie is not currently in theaters.