Dim Sum Funeral

i came into this movie not really expecting much probably because I've seen a lot of Asian American films that ended up disappointing. that wasn't to be the case this time. dim sum funeral has a lot of stuff going for it. i found the family interactions pretty believable and universal (im Chinese American btw), the story had many plot lines and while yes, it could get somewhat episodic, there are actually many Hollywood movies that fall into this structure too and that's the nature of life, isn't it? throughout the movie, i was pretty entertained and didn't look at the time and felt myself caring for the characters which is the greatest compliment one can pay a story. i also absolutely loved the music. the simple piano music really reminded me of the east Asian aesthetic in films and the film became "more Asian" as a result. also, it gave the movie a ethereal and fleeting quality perfect for a movie about death and life. and i don't know how they got her but talia shire is wonderful in the film. it's really great to see her back and it was fun looking to see if the actors would be intimidated by her stature which they weren't. really, all the main characters and even bai ling which i normally cant stand do quite admirably.

all in all, dim sum funeral was a very nice, elegant and heartfelt surprise and i recommend it. 8 out of 10.

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.

It's rare for me to post anything about a bad movie, particularly one I've not even finished watching yet, but my gods this is a dreadful flick. Self-righteous, preachy, maudlin, clichéd and simply embarrassing rip-off of the much superior Joy Luck Club. I'm just waiting for someone to cry out in anguish "Mom loved you best!" Not sure how long I can actually keep my dinner down for...

"Tradition. It's important" "Yes. It is."

I approached this film thinking there might be some interesting ethnographic material about ethnic Chinese funeral customs, but when one of the daughters who is lesbian, approached one of the officiating monks about being a sperm donor so she and her partner can conceive, and then he produces a turkey baster filled with 'monk spunk' and the realization he is not cut out to be a monk...

And the final plot twist of the film ... why? At what point did a grown person think, "hey- this is a good idea".

Truly a remarkable entry in the slop bucket of contemporary cinema.

I was intrigued by the story background because it seemed to offer a lot of potential on exploring the typical conflicts of a Chinese American family from the perspective of the children living with Western values and a parent with traditional Chinese background. The opening offers some hope of shedding some light but as the movie continued on, I realized that my expectations were not going to be met. The only reason why I continued to watch the entire movie was to watch the story unfold. The acting wasn't stellar but it wasn't that terrible either. I was trying to figure out what went wrong with this movie and decided it was a combination of the script and direction.

We were told about what happened between the mother and her children and how she was perceived by them and how through others they discovered a different side to her they never knew. That wasn't too well fleshed out either. This is a movie that I continue to keep saying had a lot of potential.

Sometimes the scenes try to make light of a situation or give us few laughs but they seemed manipulated and artificial. The characters seemed stiff and not very personal. It's not the fault of the actors but the lack of meat in the script to allow the actors to flesh out the characters and the directing. I'm not sure about why some parts of the plot were in the movie because they were pretty ridiculous and implausible. The twist is something pretty ridiculous that destroyed and hope of being taken seriously.

This is the problem of the movie. What does it want to be? A comedy? Drama? Both but with a twist and some sprinkling of life's lessons mixed in, all neatly tied up. If it was better focused with a tighter script it could have been much better.

I really wanted this movie to work for me and like I said, I watched it until the end hoping for something to redeem itself. The twist was stupid and unbelievable.

What a waste

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.