Ning film makes tardy debut(2)

Director Ning Hao built his name with Crazy Stone, a surprise hit in 2005 often compared to works by Guy Ritchie for its quirky characters and wild plot.

After No Man's Land was banned from theaters, Ning directed Guns and Roses, but the costume drama was not as well received as his previous works.

"We were all sons to our fathers back then, but now we are someone's fathers ourselves," Huang Bo says of how they have changed in the past three years.

Ning Hao was not willing to talk about the film's content at a news conference on Oct 25, but he says the film's eventual release has been a pleasant surprise.

"I feel nothing but happiness," he says.

China Film Group, which produced the film, made no comment on the film's long-delayed release.

The film, according to insiders who saw it three years ago, is quite different from Ning's previous films, most of which were comedies.

It is a road movie set in the remote west of China, mostly on the Gobi desert in Xinjiang, where Xu plays a lawless lawyer and Huang is a cruel killer.

"It reminds me of the Coen Brothers' No Country for Old Men, dark and absurd - you don't feel very cheered up after seeing it," says another insider who asked to remain anonymous.