This movie might actually be my first Chinese spaghetti western. It's very funny and highly satirical, typical of Jiang Wen. At first, I thought it was going to be a lot like Mel Brooks' "Blazing Saddles", and in some respects it is. But really, it's a good deal more sophisticated than that. The plot is almost like a chess game between two brilliant strategists. I understand, from one Chinese reviewer, that the film has a lot of double entendres and puns in Chinese that we are missing without it being our first language. This is an incredible movie, even with half of it lost in translation. I can only imagine that it's absolutely brilliant in Chinese. Warning: The pacing is super fast and the plot is extremely complicated. Be prepared to pause the film and back up.
Kazakh journalist Borat Sagdiyev travels to America to make a documentary. As he zigzags across the nation, Borat meets real people in real situations with hysterical consequences. His backwards behavior generates strong reactions around him exposing prejudices and hypocrisies in American culture.
A samurai answers a village's request for protection after he falls on hard times. The town needs protection from bandits, so the samurai gathers six others to help him teach the people how to defend themselves, and the villagers provide the soldiers with food.
When a childless couple-an ex-con and an ex-cop-decide to help themselves to one of another family's quintuplets, their lives become more complicated than they anticipated.
Low-level bureaucrat Sam Lowry escapes the monotony of his day-to-day life through a recurring daydream of himself as a virtuous hero saving a beautiful damsel. Investigating a case that led to the wrongful arrest and eventual death of an innocent man instead of wanted terrorist Harry Tuttle, he meets the woman from his daydream, and in trying to help her gets caught in a web of mistaken identities, mindless bureaucracy and lies.
Set in the future, the story follows a young soldier named Johnny Rico and his exploits in the Mobile Infantry. Rico's military career progresses from recruit to non-commissioned officer and finally to officer against the backdrop of an interstellar war between mankind and an arachnoid species known as "the Bugs."
Brian Cohen is an average young Jewish man, but through a series of ridiculous events, he gains a reputation as the Messiah. When he's not dodging his followers or being scolded by his shrill mother, the hapless Brian has to contend with the pompous Pontius Pilate and acronym-obsessed members of a separatist movement. Rife with Monty Python's signature absurdity, the tale finds Brian's life paralleling Biblical lore, albeit with many more laughs.
Despite trying to keep his swashbuckling to a minimum, a threat to California's pending statehood causes the adventure-loving Don Alejandro de la Vega and his wife, Elena, to take action.
Archaeologist Rick O'Connell travels to China, pitting him against an emperor from the 2,000-year-old Han dynasty who's returned from the dead to pursue a quest for world domination. This time, O'Connell enlists the help of his wife and son to quash the so-called 'Dragon Emperor' and his abuse of supernatural power.
An abortion clinic worker with a special heritage is called upon to save the existence of humanity from being negated by two renegade angels trying to exploit a loophole and reenter Heaven.
Dictator Adenoid Hynkel tries to expand his empire while a poor Jewish barber tries to avoid persecution from Hynkel's regime.
After the insane General Jack D. Ripper initiates a nuclear strike on the Soviet Union, a war room full of politicians, generals and a Russian diplomat all frantically try to stop the nuclear strike.