Big Shot's Funeral [DVD]

I love this movie and I use excerpts of it in my Media Culture course even if it needs translating. Even more importantly is that the movie as a whole is hilarious being a westerner that has enjoyed going to China. It has the right amount of making fun of western culture and Chinese media and society without having had the government crackdown on it (because it was a Canadian co-venture and probably wasn't distributed too widely in China or the West).Both the Chinese and western casting was excellent (Donald Sutherland played it perfectly and you might even think that Paul Mazursky knows a little about the making / producing of movies and Ge You and Ying Da are spot perfect again). Its one detractor is that it periodically is a movie within a movie about making movies.

Big Shot's Funeral - Yes the story line is unbelievable - And no it is not the type of film that would win awards - But yes it entertaining and that is what it should be. Of course if you are of Chinese culture you may would pick-up more of the inside jokes, but if you have seen many other Chinese language films you know when the names Li Gong and Ziyi Zhang are dropped for fun. When you want to take a break from the great Chinese films of directors Wong-kar-wai, Yimou Zhang, Ang Lee than this is a fun film to see. Another good/fun film from this director (Xiaogang Feng) is "A World Without Thieves". If you are not used to film with subtitles than this may be a good film to start with as there is some spoken English (the Amazon listing of Chinese and French is in error by not including English). Buy it cheap -you won't regret it.

We spent a week with the director and his wife, so we wanted to see his movies. Was rather different.

Hilarious.

Loved it so much I bought it.

What begins as a questionable film becomes an amusing story with hilarious notions. Auteur filmmaker Tyler of the USA lays dying in China while his new best friend YoYo, a cameraman with auteur tendencies becomes determined to fulfill Tyler's final wish of a grand comedy funeral. If you've ever made a film on a shoestring budget, you get "it" while watching this DVD and if you've illegally burned the DVD you're watching, you must destroy it after viewing or suffer the guilt of stealing from the filmmakers. As a viewer who is constantly aware of product placement, this film is like a smorgasbord of products thrown on the screen in a most absurd fashion. As a student of philosophy, I enjoyed hearing beliefs which were thrown on the screen in a most absurd fashion. As a devotee of romance, a budding love was thrown on the screen in an even more absurd fashion with no apparent chemistry between the two parties. Nevertheless, this film provided a laminate which actually works and provided laughs along the way, and I mean robust roars, not the more common little giggles. Paul Mazursky, in his documentary, YIPPEE, says, "I am a famous movie director." Mazursky's role in BIG SHOT'S FUNERAL is perfectly cast and worth the price of admission. Donald Sutherland as Tyler is perfectly played, a man of few words, grand ideas, and a receptive but forceful personality. I think only Peter Sellers could have been cast as successfully in the role, had he lived beyond 1980. Actually, an aside is that Sellers had, "In the Mood," played at his own funeral. BIG SHOT'S FUNERAL was like jumping from 1970 to 2001 and skipping all the years between. It's a film that makes you think and reflect upon the auteurs who have come and gone, leaving behind celluloid that's been the foundation for today's film students. It helps us remember that reality television was not born of an immaculate conception.

Yoyo (Ge You), a Chinese cameramen, is hired to shoot footage of an internationally renowned director (Donald Sutherland) who is filming a remake of "The Last Emperor" on location. The director takes such a liking to the cameraman that, when he has a stroke shortly after being fired from the project, his final words are to charge the hapless documentarian with staging a "comedy funeral" for him. (I confess that I never quite understood what a comedy funeral was, but no matter.) Yoyo enlists the aid of a friend (Da Ying) who promotes concerts and they attempt to fund the project with product placements. The situation gets out of control with very amusing results.This is a very interesting Mandarin-English hybrid, in which various characters use both languages with subtitles applied where needed. Sutherland seems to be having a great time and Ge You, who is a comedic star in China, shines with his deadpan delivery. Rosamund Kwan, playing the director's assistant, gives a terrific performance as a woman caught in the middle between two men she cares for deeply. This movie was a real surprise for me and I recommend it whole-heartedly.

To all of you with an interest in good movies and the Mandarin dialect, checking your local Blockbuster to see if they have a copy of the recently released "Big Shot's Funeral" would be well worth your time and dime (but since you're already on this website... why not just buy one). With Donald Sutherland as the American "name" actor and Ge You as the big Chinese name, it's a really well-executed movie that plays out in about 1/4 English and the rest Mandarin.The very up-to-the-minute story, set in Beijing, is beautifully filmed and puts a premium on satire that takes jabs at the American movie industry and burgeoning Chinese market economies alike. For those working on their language, there is more than enough vocab and a range of accents to make this a semester's worth of lessons ... some of it literally so, as an ABC character has to occasionally check with the locals on some current slang. It's scary how inpenetrable the "Beijingr" accent can be at times. Written and delivered with a humor and timing that should appeal to Western audiences and filmed in a somewhat Altman-esque fashion, it's a really refreshing departure from the historical costume melodramas that leave you wiped out and wondering if the mainland is capable of productions as contemporary and uplifting as they often are well-crafted and dour. This would show the answer to be - most definitely!JPQ

Feng Xiaogang's Big Shot's Funeral is one of those films that has a good idea that it never really runs with enough, leaving what could have been a cut-throat satire a watchable light comedy that never makes you feel as good as it clearly wants you to. Donald Sutherland is the big shot director struggling with a remake of The Last Emperor in China and at the end of his creative and physical tether when he's suddenly fired by old friend and producer Paul Mazursky. His last request before literally falling into a coma is that the cameraman on the stalled film's making of documentary (Ge You) gives him a comedy funeral that celebrates his life and impending reincarnation. But since he's broke, the only way to fund the lavish sendoff he's planned for him is to turn it into a global media event and sell advertising space not just on the venue and hearse but on the corpse itself - not that there is a corpse yet, with Sutherland resolutely not dying as the excitement for the event goes global and his assistant Rosamund Kwan looks on increasingly aghast...There's quite a bit of cross-cultural bonding before the premise even sets up its stall, and even when lying in his hospital bed it takes a surprisingly long time for the film's main targets - China's growing commercialism and, to a lesser degree, its unacknowledged organised crime - to raise their head. The film makes quite a few neat jabs here and there, finding time for a lecture about the evils of video piracy as it goes, but even without the problems of translating Ge You's Mandarin wordplay for English speaking audiences the big laughs never really materialise. It's one of those okay comedies with a few smiles and the odd funny moment that it's no great discomfort to sit through to the end but which still leaves you disappointed that it never lives up to its promise. Two-and-a-half stars.The only extra on the disc is the US trailer for the film.

Minor film about interesting plot but film did not grab my attention