‘The Wooden Man’s Bride’ (NR)

Huang Jianxin's "The Wooden Man's Bride" may be set in the Far East, but it's the most visually stunning, emotionally powerful western since Clint Eastwood's "Unforgiven."

Set during the '20s,"The Wooden Man's Bride" tells an ancient mythical story that begins in a village on the harsh, rocky plains of northwestern China. The wealthy Liu family is preparing for their son's wedding. Before the marriage can take place, the bride (Wang Lan), a peasant girl whose father owes money to the groom's family, must be transported by camel to the Liu mansion. It's a long, hot, dusty trip, and during one of the caravan's infrequent rest stops, the bride, who wears a red cloth to hide her face, immodestly removes it, allowing herself to be seen by Kui (Chang Shih) and the other peasants responsible for her safe delivery.

Her act of brazen disregard for custom seems innocuous enough, but its effect is like that of a curse, reverberating through the lives of every character. Almost immediately, the horizon is filled with outlaws -- known as the Whirlwind Gang -- who scoop up the bride-to-be and Kui and take them to their bandit chief's headquarters.

Bad guys on horseback are nothing new to American audiences, but Huang's muscular direction and the change in terrain and cultural context make this familiar sight seem revelatory. Though eventually Kui is able to deliver the young woman unharmed, her abduction is not without its casualties. As soon as the groom hears of the kidnapping, he springs into action. But in his haste to retrieve his gun from its hiding place, it accidentally goes off, killing him instantly.

Under most circumstances, the bride would be allowed to return to her family. But the stern, autocratic Madame Liu (the astounding Wang Yumei) won't hear of it. Instead, she insists that the wedding proceed as planned, with a figure carved out of wood standing in for her son.

Naturally, this spirited young woman doesn't want a husband made of wood. After she arrives at Madame Liu's, the movie shifts into a more intimate mode, but it loses none of its narrative momentum or stylistic daring as it focuses on the conflict between Liu and her daughter-in-law -- and the girl's budding, forbidden romance with Kui. As Huang turns inward, he contrasts the sweeping landscapes and his action-adventure cutting in the first part with the cramped, heavily shadowed compositions of the Liu compound.

In the film's last third -- after the young mistress and Kui are found out and Kui is banished -- Huang returns to the bravura, epic style that he employed at the outset, carrying the audience to the picture's finale on a wave of unexpected twists and virtuosic filmmaking.

This is Huang's fifth film -- the first to be released in this country -- and, clearly, he has a remarkable talent for framing mesmerizingly handsome moving pictures. But his ability to create provocative visual metaphors -- to marry his visuals to his themes -- is even more impressive.

With the arrival of "The Wooden Man's Bride," Huang joins Chen Kaige ("Farewell My Concubine"), Zhang Yimou ("The Story of Qiu Ju") and Tian Zhuangzhuang ("The Blue Kite") and his other colleagues from the so-called Fifth Generation of Chinese filmmakers -- the most creative, committed group of moviemakers in the world. In "The Wooden Man's Bride," Huang shows not just the influence of such American filmmakers as John Ford and Howard Hawks -- as well as the Japanese master Akira Kurosawa; he also displays the much rarer gift for transposing the methods of these greats for his own purposes.

The Wooden Man's Bride is not rated.