Big Shot's Funeral

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Eastern religion collides with Western capitalism in Big Shot's Funeral, a satirical comedy about a cameraman named Yoyo (Ge You) hired to shoot a making-of documentary about a world-famous director (Donald Sutherland), who's creating a sequel to Bertolucci's The Last Emperor. When the director has a stroke and goes into a coma, the director's assistant Lucy (Rosamund Kwan) commissions Yoyo to organize the director's funeral. At a loss, Yoyo asks for help from a friend who promotes concerts--and before long the funeral has turned into a vast media spectacle with product placement running amok, so absurd that when the director recovers, he refuses to let Lucy stop the funeral because he's so enchanted. Big Shot's Funeral entertainingly mixes sweetness and dark humor as it interlaces a romance between Yoyo and Lucy with the escalating madness of the funeral. --Bret Fetzer

Customer Reviews:

Intelligent Satire.......2007-09-03

Big Shot's Funeral is an intelligent satire. The movie is both a satire of American media values or of an encroaching capitalist mentality within Communist Chinese society. The film stars an impressive lineup with Rosamund Kwan, Ge You, Ying Da, and Donald Sutherland. The film is multi Layered. Some of the layers include issues relating to East meeting West, and as mentioned earlier it is also a parody of Commercialism and the movie explores the line between artistic integrity versus selling out.

Director Feng Xiaogang is one of mainland China's most successful filmmakers. His movie Tianxià Wú Zéi [A World Without Thieves] recorded a whopping ¥100,000 in box office on its premier night in Beijing. It is claimed that within ten days of release the total box office in Mainland China exceeded ¥80 million. This figure ultimately rose to ¥100 million on the last day of 2004. This is considered a milestone in the Chinese film industry. He has just come out with a new movie called The Banquet and is working on commericals for the upcoming Olympics. Why there is little, if any, attention paid to his work is beyond me. My sense is that with his new entry into the already crowded Wuxia world with The Banquet - a line up that includes such notables as Zhang Ziyi, Zhou Xun, and Ge You... he will be considered into the pantheon of Chinese cinematic giants that includes Zhang Yimou, Ang Lee, and Chen Kaige.

With regard to the east meets west angle, director Tyler can't seem to get into the "mind" of the emperor - which is a show of western perception and a parody on the remoteness or a re-articulation of western Orientalist narrative. Feng runs the risk early of caricaturing Tyler as the representation of the West and Ge You the east and Lucy in that liminal space in-between. In the pivotal scene with Ying Da Lucy is addressed in English as it is the polite and tradtional thing to do. She is not seen as "Chinese." Arguably not his best use of Ge You who is featured in all his movies.

Despite the movies creative and fresh angles, the Da Wan (Big Shot's Funeral) falls as a movie when: A "bond" develops between Tyler and Yoyo... I don't really feel it. There also seems to be no chemistry between the tentative Lucy (Kwan) and the awkward Yoyo (Ge You)... nonetheless, I recommend it highly if just for the comic value.

This is a joint Chinese/Hong Kong Co-Production. My sense is this is a signal, that may have been sent already, that a sense of Pan-Chinese Language setup is afoot. Its deep, this movie, like a Velasques painting... it is reflective about the changes occuring in the mainland... economic changes impacting values and society.

Miguel Llora

what a stupid, boring and ridiculous nonsense!.......2007-06-18

to dream up such a ridiculous nonsense really needed some talent. but to accept such ridiculous nonsense and to claim that you like it or love it was even amazing. nonetheless, ge you had proved himself again that he could play any role throw in his way no matter how stupid the screenplay might be. guan who played the special asst to the famous director taylor was again proved herself a lousy and even worst actress. donald sutherland played the director dutifully but he obviously not too keen about this role and the screenply, he just rode along to play out and to collect the acting fee.

one thing you must be understand, nobody would ever give such a big damn about a foreign director, no matter how famous he could be. creating a foreign director's funeral held in china and auctioning off to advertisers had only made this film as a scam too.

this is a very annoying joke.

Grifters and scammers and auteurs, oh my!.......2004-07-13

Donald Sutherland plays Tyler, a world-famous director (or has he only convinced the Chinese that he is?) shooting a film about the Last Emperor in the Imperial Palace in Beijing. As he ponders his auteurish genius, and disappears into deep reflection while hundreds of costumed extras wait in the sun, his American and Japanese backers bite nails as they watch the dollars slip away.

His beautiful and devoted assistant, Rosamund Kwan as the ABC (American Born Chinese) Lucy, hires a local cameraman YoYo (Ge You) to shoot a making-of documentary, following Tyler about as a silent fly-on-the-wall. Despite YoYo's lack of English and Tyler's lack of Chinese, they bond and Tyler becomes enthused with YoYo's description of the funeral of an old person, happiness that he has lived a long and full life, what Tyler dubs a "comedy funeral".

Afraid that Tyler has lost the ability to complete the project, the backers send studio boss Tony (Paul Mazursky) to fire Tyler, and when Tyler has YoYo set the camera on a tripod to film the two of them together he has (or only seems to have?) a stroke or heart attack, managing to squeeze out to YoYo as he collapses (on camera, of course) "Comedy funeral, you must give me comedy funeral".

As Tyler lies near death in the hospital, Lucy fights with the studio to honor his last wishes, and have YoYo produce the funeral. Out of his league .. how could he possibly suitably honor such a Big Shot .. YoYo seeks an old friend, Ying Da as a bleach-blond concert promoter. Their schemes become more and more grandiose, and will take place in the Imperial Palace itself. YoYo hesitantly brings up the subject of money with Lucy, and finds out that Tyler was flat broke. The concert .. excuse me, funeral .. will have to fund itself.

This begins the most sidesplitting moments of the film, when the producers sell product placement and sponsorship rights to just about every centimeter of the Palace, the procession and even the corpse. My favorite moment is when an unknown Chinese starlet tries to buy an appearance as Tyler's distraught mistress to jump start her career.

I won't spoil the ending(s), but this is a hilarious film full of satire of the capitalist world and China's enthusiastic embrace of it. It is enhanced by the genuine relationship between YoYo and Tyler and YoYo's budding romance with Lucy.

Highly recommended for light entertainment with both bite and depth.

5 stars for originality and as a dark comedy.......2004-01-08

5 stars for originality and as a dark comedy. There wasn't much beautiful scene, but this is a movie, not a picture book. My 5 stars go to this movie.

What's up with the lack of stars on the other reviews?!.......2003-09-30

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

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