Dim Sum Funeral

As an Asian-American who is always dying for more representation, I was really rooting for this movie to win. I either seriously enjoyed most of the actors in other material or thought they had potential but haven't found the right vehicle yet.

That said, this movie makes me wonder what it could have been in more capable hands. If the screenwriter had a lot more craftsmanship to juggle all of the introduced ideas and actually resolved them in a very natural and realistic way that didn't seem tacked on or written by someone who cannot write fully realized characters with deep human motivation and emotion in a realistic way. If the director knew how to set up scenes and make the action go organically rather than in the very stilted manner this movie was done in.

There were also some weird issues, like how everyone sounded dubbed in this movie. That made the acting seem mechanical and fake, and did nothing to help us buy into the scenes at all. With the already lacking screenplay which doesn't properly provide any real subtext for the characters and the wooden directing of scenes already not helping our perceptions of the actors' abilities, the dubbing just made the acting seem worse than it had to be.

I could write a huge essay about all the specific plot points that were haphazardly introduced and then dropped and how the audience is supposed to simply accept certain things without actually being shown or feeling as if those things actually happened to these characters. I've done so on the message board. Instead I'll just conclude that there was an idea here with potential, but it was not realized.

I will say the best scene was when the siblings joined one of the other characters in Tai Chi. That scene seemed like it could have came from the hypothetical well-made movie I thought this movie could have been.

This was just on HBO. After watching for a few minutes, I checked to see if I was really watching HBO rather than Hallmark. Sure enough, 'Dim Sum Funeral' was written by the King of the Hallmark Movies. What could have been a look into Chinese culture turned into yet another pile of schlock. Blech.

This is a really bad film. The acting is really bad, and the audio even worse. The script is childish and coupled with the amateurish level of acting, it ends up at the level of a community theater production. Don't waste your time trying to watch it.... I lasted 20 minutes and that was more than enough!

This movie tries desperately to be in so many other movies footsteps that it just winds up tripping all over itself. This movie is essentially The Joy Luck Club's, Ugly Twin Sister. Although the writing is bad, it's not completely a mess. I do like that it tries to show that Chinese Americans are progressive in American society, but it never departs from some serious jingoistic dialog that seems borrowed from a bag of fortune cookies. The Family is actually a bore, but the writer thinks that by making one a lesbian, and another marry a Black Man would make them more interesting. Also, having all the non-family members play completely humble, somewhat quirky, incredibly understanding, and knowledgeable to the family's "attitude" is just unbelievable. The Directing is somewhat amateurish but better than some Chinese Soap Serials. The actors are all so stiff in their performances - I've seen better performances with claymation. On the bright side, Russle Wong's acting has improved just enough to be the best performance in the whole movie - that's bad.

The lesbian actress Meimei (Steph Song), the doctor Alexander (Russell Wong), the real state agent Elizabeth (Julia Nickson) and the journalist Victoria (Françoise Yip) are contacted by Viola (Talia Shire) that tells that their mother Ms. Lingy "Lynda" Xiao (Lisa Lu) had died. The Chinese-American siblings head to Seattle with their families where their mother's assistant Viola tells that her last wish was a seven-day Chinese funeral with her dysfunctional family. Meanwhile, the stranger pianist and Tai Chi Chun follower Chow Lin (Chang Tseng) arrives from Beijing for the funeral. Along the next days, Meimei and her partner Dede Chan (Bai Ling) try to get sperm from the monk Bruce (Curtis Lum), and Viola delivers a letter from her mother telling the truth about her father. Alex tries to reconcile with his wife and former Miss Taiwan Cindy (Kelly Hu). Liz still grieves the loss of her son Sammy and is not ready to return to her husband Michael (Adrian Hough). On the sixth day of the funeral, the siblings have a huge surprise.

"Dim Sun Funeral" has a potential story about a dysfunctional family with estranged siblings, loss of traditions, bitterness and reconciliation with many wealthy characters. Unfortunately the director Anna Chi makes a poor work and the plot becomes a melodramatic and sometimes boring Chinese-American soap opera, lost between the comedy and the heavy drama. Anyway, there are many interesting values and traditions from the Chinese culture and it is worthwhile watching this movie at least once. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Meu Último Desejo" ("My Last Wish")