Shanghai Surprise

In 1930s Japanese occupied Shanghai, sleazy drunkard and drifter Glendon Wasey (Sean Penn) is stranded without the means to get home and his sole possession of several novelty neckties. Wasey is approached by missionary Miss Tatlock (Madonna) who enlists his help as a translator in supposedly finding the missing father of a bedridden soldier in the care of her mission, which spirals into a chase for a crate of lost opium that puts both Miss Tatlock and Wasey in contact with various duplicitous and unseemly elements in Shanghai.

Shanghai Surprise is a 1986 romantic comedy adventure film based on Tony Kenrick's 1985 novel Faraday's Flowers that served as a vehicle for then newlywed husband and wife Madonna and Sean Penn. Due to the high profile nature of the real life relationship between the stars, the film attracted considerable attention even prior to release with reports of photographers inundating the set of the film that Penn demanded the film's publicist be fired. A co-production between the US and Britain, distributor MGM rejected director Jim Goddard's initial cut of the film and order re-edits as Goddard was unable to secure alternative distribution. Prior to release both Penn and Madonna attempted to distance themselves from the film including demanding their likenesses be removed from tie-in novel and MGM clearly knew they had a bomb on their hands as it opened in only 400 theaters in 18th place behind several Summer holdovers ending its run with a little over $2 million against a $15 million budget. Critical reception was overwhelmingly negative with many lambasting the performances, writing, technical aspects, and even the original songs and score done in part by George Harrison were poorly received to the point the soundtrack album's release was cancelled. Shanghai Surprise is a mess of a movie and is definitely a case of everyone giving their worst work.

In terms of what Shanghai Surprise is: think a kind of screwball comedy mixture with shades of Maltese Falcon, some elements of Romancing the Stone, and some elements of older films like To Have and Have Not, and you'll get somewhat in the ballpark of what watching Shanghai Surprise is like (assuming you transfer the elements of those films without what worked). The movie has a problem maintaining a consistent tone as parts of the film seem like they're playing in a manner akin to a screwball farce complete with limp pratfalls and floundering gags that linger way longer than necessary, while other parts such as Lim Kay Tong's performance as Mei Gan is so dark it feels like he belongs in something like Temple of Doom. Jim Goddard had a respectable history in British period television prior to this film (and subsequently returned there) and Goddard shows absolutely no flair for directing this kind of light hearted adventure film as the pacing is way too slow and deliberate for either an adventure film or a comedy. Sean Penn is hopelessly unappealing as Glendon Wasey and when looking at the majority of Penn's career one notices he doesn't typically do comedies and Shanghai Surprise is a prime example of just how hopeless Penn is when he comes to comedy as he often looks stiff and uncomfortable and can't deliver lines with any comic punch (a far cry from his dramatic works). And then of course we have Madonna, while Madonna has the looks of a leading lady, she doesn't have the delivery or presence of one. Madonna's performance as Miss Tatlock is very wooden and she doesn't sell the comedic scenes or even the romantic scenes all that well (with the chemistry rather flat between Madonna and Penn). The only good point I can remark on from the film is maybe the production design and some of the costuming, but it's in service of such ineptitude that its novelty wears off.

Shanghai Surprise is the definition of a "Hollywood trainwreck". You have a big budget and name stars in a seemingly decent setup for something like this only for it to crash and burn before your eyes. As a time capsule for a certain focus of celebrity history of the 80s it's maybe worth a viewing, but it is a bit of a slog getting through it.

The thought struck me recently that this movie was unfavorably received by critics and audiences alike at the time of its release (1986) because of the celebrity status of the two leading stars - Madonna and Sean Penn. But, if you watch the movie today, some twenty five years later, and if you are able to put the hype and the celebrity status of those two stars out of your mind, then, the movie doesn't seem so bad. In fact, it's actually a pretty good escapist adventure romp along the lines of an Indiana Jones movie.

I watched this movie for the first time just recently, as I was scared away from viewing it all those many years prior, simply because of all the negative hype surrounding it - the hype that said it was a real stinker. But I actually found it to be a pretty engrossing story, with a nicely done cinematography that oozed a colorful, exotic, sometimes even enchanting Oriental atmosphere that was hard to dismiss. Some of the shots, as filmed, were... beautiful! So don't let 1980's critics scare you away: this movie is worth a shot, and if you can mentally distill the two leads down to just being a guy and a girl from 1930's America thrust into an adventure escapade set in a faraway exotic locale, then you just might enjoy this movie for what it was meant to be: pure escapist entertainment.

Not perfect, but then again, NOT the stinker it has been made out to be.

Penn is miscast and Madonna has a straight, subdued, do-gooder role that's a big conceptual mistake - it saps her of energy and fun. Excruciatingly dull and dreary - even the location shooting in Hong Kong cannot save it. * out of 4.

OK. So someone took an A-list actor and his famous singer/ part time kind of-sort of actress wife and decided that the movie would be carried on the weight of the names alone. Substitute "fiancee" for wife and one has Gigli.

But it is not- it is Shanghai Surprise, possibly the most ill-conceived movie of the 1980's (and yes, I have seen "Hobgoblins.")

This movie has no redeeming qualities whatsoever. Ridiculous plot, painfully bad acting (Madonna as a missionary? She didn't buy it either, so she says her lines in a flat tone which just screams "get me out of this costume and get me my check"), cinematography worthy of an old episode of "Fantasy Island," lame ending.

If, by some chance, you stumble across a copy of this in an unused corner of your local video rental store, call your local hazardous waste disposal hotline- do not rent it.

But do not forget that this horror exists. Some people forgot- and thus "Gigli" was born.

If nothing else this film has heart. I remember years ago all the hype that was injected into this film aimed at adolescent girls (i.e. Madonna fans), with the angle being that they would get to see the then infamous couple of Penn and Madonna frolic on the big silver screen.

Well, it didn't take a rocket scientist to know where this film was headed. Like with all films when the hype exceeds previously good, yet unhyped, films you know something's up.

The story itself isn't bad. It's kind of hackneyed at points, but that's its genre, and for what the film is it works after a fashion. There're only two real problems with this film;

1) Madonna's then acting capabilities. It's not bad for a performer who's more used to singing and dancing, and it's unfair to expect anything more from her, but her acting talent then was what it was; lacking. Let's face it, she's a better singer and dancer than an actress, and this comes from a man who is not one of her fans.

2)The second problem is the actual filming and execution of this film. The storie's there, the acting's there (Madonna not withstanding), and so forth, but there's little in the way of coverage or good cinematography. It's passing. It gets the job done. But the shots are those of a low budget flick. I believe there was a real opportunity to create atmosphere with good camera direction, but the focus of the film wasn't art so much as it was to capitalize on the then Madonna-Penn phenomenon (the film itself was riding the coat tails of Indiana Jones and The High Road to China films).

And that last part is really too bad, because this film could've been much more. At least when I saw it on HBO years ago the print I saw then was clear, corrected, crisp and otherwise very viewable. Today I had a gander at the recently released DVD, and it looks like the owners of the property took an old 16mm broadcast print and had some fly by night tranfer company encode it on a DVD master; complete with a couple of scratches on grainy film stock.

In short, if you didn't like it the first time, then don't bother with the DVD because it's even worse. If you got a spare evening, and your friend loaned you the disk, or it's available at the library, then give it a look, but don't expect too much.