Sweet Grass

Another Chinese 'Western', set on the grasslands of Gansu in the 1920s, scripted by the writer of The Swordsman in Double-Flag Town and directed by a former assistant of Zhang Yimou. Nothing startlingly new in the plot (young widow has to choose between two surrogate fathers for her son - one a feckless gambler and knife-thrower, the other a klutzy itinerant pedlar - and she makes the mistake of choosing the sexy one), but plenty of pleasure in the performances, the score, the widescreen cinematography, and in baroque details like a game of mahjong played with tiles the size of tombstones.