The Missing Gun is the first of Lu Chuan's amazing films...Mountain Patrol is the second... There is almost no way to describe this film except to say it is amazing... Lu Chuan has a way of befriending the viewing with his characters...making them into actual friends in your life much in the way Dickens did so in another place and time... Only there is nothing out of time or old-fashioned about these films...any more than there is anything particularly Chinese...these are transparent jaunts through real life with the exception that they vault over principals of honesty, honor, and loyalty... As I have told my own friends, these may be some of the best Westerns ever made, but they are, of course, not Westerns! See this film. It will become one of your regular faves as it has become mine.

In a province in China, Detective Ma Shan (Wen Jiang) wakes up on the day after the wedding party of his sister Ma Juan (Huang Fan) and finds that his gun with three bullets is missing. Ma Shan drank too much in the party and does not recall what might have happen with his weapon. He falls in disgrace with his superiors and investigates who might have stolen the gun. When his former sweetheart Li Xiaomeng (Jing Ning) is found dead with a shot of his weapon, he becomes the prime suspect. When the police force arrests his acquaintance Zhou Xiaogang (Shi Liang), he discloses that Li Xiaomeng was accidentally killed since his friend was the real target of the murderer. Ma Shan uses Zhou Xiaogang as a bait to lure and arrest the criminal an retrieve his missing gun."The Missing Gun" was one of the greatest and best surprises among the movies I have recently watched. China Video usually produces low budget, violent and full of action movies with messed screenplays, but "The Missing Gun" is actually a refreshing story that exposes a shock of cultures. In most of Western movies, it is very easy to get a gun (banal in North American movies), but in Communist China, guns are prohibited for the population and therefore they are a symbol of power, respect and honor to the policeman. Even the number of bullets are limited in accordance with this film. Based on this explanation, we can understand the saga of Ma Shan to find his missing gun. This movie has great interpretations, wonderful locations and a beautiful cinematography. The bicycles chase is surrealistic and unusual and one of the most attractive scenes along this great film. The ambiguous conclusion, with the death of Ma Shan, ends this highly recommended movie with golden key. My vote is eight.Title (Brazil): "A Arma Perdida" ("The Lost Weapon")

Anyone expecting a John Woo/Ringo Lam-type actioner will be sorely disappointed by this Chinese film, "The Missing Gun." Director Lu Chuan adopts western film-making techniques, but paces his film deliberately, not hurrying through the motions or adopting slam-bang action to tell his story.You could draw parallels to Walter Hill's "48 HRS." (1982) and Akira Kurosawa's "Stray Dog" (1949), both of which dealt with similar stories of a police officer losing his handgun, which falls into the hands of a criminal."The Missing Gun" isn't as action-packed as Hill's film or as perceptive and intriguing as Kurosawa's. Then again, emulating Kurosawa is no easy task.But the film provides an interesting lesson about gun culture. In this country, we have a nation obsessed with owning firearms. In "The Missing Gun," the protagonist is a police officer Ma Shan (Jiang Wen) facing embarrassment, ridicule and shame for having lost his service pistol. Private ownership of guns is banned so the police know exactly how many bullets are left in the weapon.I am not advocating banning gun-ownership in this country, but "The Missing Gun" provides an intriguing cultural lesson, especially when we have an American president and congressional leaders who kowtowed to the gun lobby and recently let lapse the assault weapons ban, apparently not seeing the harm in letting the public purchase Uzis and AK-47s. Someone has still to explain to me why these weapons are needed to hunt."The Missing Gun" does not adopt film-making styles seen in the works of Zhang Yimou or Chen Kaige. This film definitely has a western influence. The camera moves quickly, there are quick cuts and for a low-budget film - it was apparently shot for about $250,000 - the cinematography is spectacularly good. But instead of clichéd storytelling techniques, Lu Chuan gives us some novelty. There's a delightful chase scene and his characters certainly aren't conventional. Ma Shan spends much of the first act asking various people whether they've stolen his gun. But there's a sense of mystery to all this, because we're never sure if they're being truthful. And the director opts for a denouement that's unexpected, especially if you've grown up with American films. "The Missing Gun" is by no means a masterpiece. But it offers more insight into human nature than much of what Hollywood churns out these days. And if you're in the mood for something different, a film that takes its time unraveling the mystery, this film has much to offer the discriminating moviegoer.

It is not another Hong Kong excellent-made movie, but this is coming from the rural China with no martial arts or frenetic chase but the one with two old bicycles. The story is by itself strong and humanly ethical. A great man makes a mistake and he has to fix it up, above all the dilemmas or even his integrity moral o physical. The village where it was shot is a fascinating one, the photography is mesmerizing and some camera tricks give the magical touch to the visual without recurring to effects that surely they (the movie producers from China) can't afford. Somehow it reminds me the Brazilian City of God but with a more paced rhythm and a life philosophy that can only come from the rising East. Definitely a movie without the boring tastes of hollywoodean clichés, with this, who cares about reading the subtitles?