If you cast one of the greatest action heroes of all time in a movie called Let the Bullets Fly, then audiences are going to have a certain level of expectation heading in. Thankfully, writer, director, and co-star Jian Weng’s 2010 more than delivered on that front, becoming a critical and commercial sensation in the process.
Legendary icon of Hong Kong cinema Chow Yun-fat takes top billing in the 1920s-set caper, with his infamous kingpin Master Huang forced to deal with an interloper who shows up in a remote town passing himself off as the mayor. Obviously, he’s assumed the identity from someone else who isn’t the real mayor, too, creating a lie-within-a-lie that does indeed see the bullets fly.
Not only did the movie land Best Film, Best Director, and Best Actor nods among its many nominations at the Asian Film Awards, Golden Horse Film Festival, and Hong Kong Film Awards, but it smashed a mountain of box office records on its way to becoming the highest-grossing release in the history of Chinese cinema at the time, topping out at an impressive $110 million.
Of course, that benchmark has been smashed countless times over in the dozen years since, but Netflix users have still been flocking to Let the Bullets Fly in their numbers. As per FlixPatrol, the widely-praised blend of broad comedy and expertly-orchestrated action has become one of the most-watched features on the streaming service’s global charts, with subscribers evidently happy to spend an epic 132 minutes indulging in a high concept romp that lives up to its moniker and then some.
