BIG SHOT'S FUNERAL
(a film review by Mark R. Leeper)
CAPSULE: China tries to make a film that will play well as a screwball comedy in both the United States and in China. It is a good attempt and the words are right but the rhythms just don't quite work. Also, there is a bit of an anti-capitalist message that fades through. When it is discovered a great American director is dying in China, there are plans to make his funeral a highly commercialized international event from Beijing's Forbidden City. Rating: 5 (0 to 10), low +1 (-4 to +4)
From China comes a film very atypical of that country. BIG SHOT'S FUNERAL is a wild and topical comedy about commercialization and global business. While it has many funny bits, overall the film seems to have timing a little off for Western audiences. Don Tyler (played by Donald Sutherland) is one of the great international film directors. He is currently in China to film THE LAST DYNASTY, his remake of THE LAST EMPEROR. Tyler is under pressure to get more of his film made, but Tyler is finding the process slow as he gets distracted and fascinated by Chinese society. Yoyo is hired by Tyler's assistant Lucy to film the process for a "Making of..." film. Tyler and Yoyo become good friends who have long talks. When Yoyo mentions that in Chinese culture a funeral is not sad, Tyler gets fixated on the phrase "comedy funeral." Then a heart attack takes Tyler off the film and in the expectation of dying he says he wants a comedy funeral. Yoyo runs with the idea wanting to make the funeral a global media event broadcast from the Forbidden City.
From there the deals and the absurdity of the commercialization gets worse and worse in an accelerating spiral. One company will fight to become the official beer of the Tyler funeral. Really it is the same joke over and over. The script was written with several topical references to recent events in China. References are made to the Turandot broadcast from the Forbidden City just a year before the film's production. The film itself is obviously shot in the Forbidden City, at one point a rare and exotic location, but its ready availability is part of the joke. Individual gags seem to work and are funny, but overall the feel seems uncoordinated and does not hold together as a unity. There are too many repetitions of the same idea, a bad taste juxtaposition of a potential sponsor and what should be a solemn event. BIG SHOT'S FUNERAL has no good third act to follow the rest of the story. When the jokes run out the plot just gets tied up as quickly as possible.
Director Feng Xiaogang is known for his offbeat films and this film is certainly not what one expects in a Chinese film. With American actors like Donald Sutherland and Paul Mazursky, much of the dialog in English, and a non-traditional theme, BIG SHOT'S FUNERAL is very unusual for a Chinese film. This is light-hearted jab at commercialization and internationalization of the media. I rate it a 5 on the 0 to 10 scale and a low +1 on the -4 to +4 scale.
Mark R. Leeper mleeper@optonline.net Copyright 2003 Mark R. Leeper
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