Gone with the Bullets

Gone with the Bullets (一步之遥, 2014) is a Chinese historical black comedy directed by Jiang Wen — watch online on iFILM. The title spins off Gone with the Wind, and Jiang Wen leans into the comparison: this film is sprawling, extravagant, and entirely committed to its own excess.

Shanghai, around 1920. Jiang Wen plays Ma Zouri, a former aristocrat now running cons. He and his partner Xiang Feitian — a police official with a situational relationship to the law — co-produce the city's most extravagant beauty pageant, the Flowers Competition, drawing every notable name in town. When an outsider named Wanyan Ying takes the crown against all expectations, events spiral beyond anyone's control. Shu Qi and Ge You — one of China's most beloved comic actors — round out the principal cast.

Part silent-film parody, part period musical, part political pamphlet — Jiang Wen made something that refuses to settle into a single genre, and probably doesn't want to. Stream Gone with the Bullets (2014) online on iFILM.