Oh, starry nights

Three new movies opened at cinemas citywide this week to herald the year's Christmas releases.

The most-anticipated one, Zhang Yimou's Amazing Tales: Three Guns, is the famed director's first since crafting the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Billed as a comic thriller, it tells the story of a noodle shop owner who plans to kill his cheating wife and her lover. But the plan backfires when a gun enters the lives of characters more used to knives and swords.

Comedian Xiao Shenyang is joined by TV star Yan Ni and mainland actor Sun Honglei in this flick shot in northwest China's Gansu province and adapted from a Coen Brothers' thriller, Blood Simple (1985).