TV, Money Are Everything In Chinese Satire `Ermo'

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XX 1/2 "Ermo," with Alia, Liu Peiqi, Ge Zhijun, Zhang Haiyan. Directed by Zhou Xiaowen, from a script by Lang Yun. Metro Cinemas. No rating; includes rough language. In Mandarin, with English subtitles. -----------------------------------------------------------------

The second installment in the Metro's "New Chinese Cinema" series, "Ermo" is a nimble if ultimately simplistic satire about the apparently universal problem of keeping up with the Joneses' technology.

The heroine, Ermo, is a hard-working housewife who is determined to own a bigger television set than her chain-smoking, slovenly neighbor, Fat Woman.

Ermo's elderly husband, Chief, is ailing, impotent, uninterested in work and unable to help her. Her young son, Tiger, spends more and more time at Fat Woman's home - it's the only place in the village where he can watch television - while the scheming Ermo breaks her back to turn her noodle-making business into a money-spinner.

All she wants is enough money to buy a 29-inch color television set. She rises at dawn to churn out "twisty noodles," gets a job as a kitchen supervisor in a restaurant, then starts selling her blood several times a day. Convinced that she's found a new gold mine, she even tries to thin out the blood she drains by gulping down huge bowls of salted water.

Meanwhile, Ermo continues her petty feud with Fat Woman. She poisons her pig. Fat Woman piles her dirty laundry on Ermo's noodles. Ermo, who apparently accepts the cultural tradition that girls are valueless, makes a point of reminding Fat Woman that at least her child has male organs.

Ermo also begins an affair with Fat Woman's husband, Blindman, who sleeps with her in his pickup and makes the mistake of insulting her independent spirit by secretly subsidizing her restaurant pay.

After she gets what she wants, of course, Ermo has reason to wonder if she really wants it. The complications involving the delivery of Ermo's prized television, its positioning and use in their household - not to mention the makeshift antenna used to catch the dubbed, Caucasian-filled American programs they watch - would be farcical if they weren't so bitterly ironic.

The director, Zhou Xiaowen ("No Regrets About Youth," "The Black Mountain Road"), claims that money, "once a synonym for filth," is now God in China. He says he loves Ermo "because she's selfish and honest" and because she "creates a stir" wherever sex and money are concerned.

As tough and goal-oriented as the determined village lady Gong Li played in Zhang Yimou's "The Story of Qiu Ju," Ermo is played by Alia, a single-named actress who brings a dryly comic intensity to the role. The movie doesn't have much else on its mind, but its heroine is memorable.