Funérailles de star

Years ago my high school economics teacher held up a tin toy car with wooden wheels. It was the typical Japanese product of its day. "Beware of people who can do this," he told us. The class did not understand his words until he turned the car over to reveal that it had been made from a Schlitz beer can. The rest of Japanese ingenuity and production is history.

The movie Da wan (Big Shot's Funeral) carries a similar message. Though they may be behind, the Chinese can catch on quickly, particularly to the world of Madison Avenue as illustrated by this hilarious movie where hype and commercialism run amok. This movie reminds me of the 50's si/fi novel "Space Merchants" (Gravy Planet) by Pohl and Kornbluth in which an ad agency gets the exclusive rights to advertise products on the planet Venus. The unconscionable excess on both Venus and in China say much about us as consumers who would rather be entertained than informed.

Sutherland, always good, is excellent here. I am confident the low rating for this film is because of its subtitles, but they are not a bother and are part of the humor.

Puzzled?

Do you like to be puzzled? Do you like movies having a surprise ending?

Then it is a must to watch " Big Shot's Funeral" - a film about the difficult matter of making films. Sounds serious- but it isn't, in fact it is pretty funny.

Film within a Film

A documentary cameraman Yo-Yo(Ge You)is hired to document the way a fabulously successful director Don Tyler (Donald Sutherland) is remaking Bertulucci's movie "The Last Emperor". During the process of work the director feels more and more uninspired, if not disillusioned.

When understanding comes without Language

Lucy (Rosamund Kwan), his personal assistant tries hard to keep him going, but in a strange way Yo-Yo having no command of English touches him and arouses his interest. Due to a misunderstanding ( Lucy is trying to mediate between the two men) Tyler catches the idea that in China even a funeral is a comical event and asks Yo-Yo to arrange something like that for him just in case of his death.

To Be or Not to Be

When the director goes into coma, Yo-Yo starts immediately to arrange the whole thing. He approaches King ( Ying Da), a blond Chinese concert promoter, to make up the event as a gigantic media spectacle. How to finance such a comedy funeral? No big deal - product placement will help. When all space is sold - Tyler recovers, which clearly means that Yo-Yo is in big trouble and the film has to come to an end. The puzzle is solved in a surprising way - go and find out yourself.

As You Like It

For sure you won't regret going to the movies although you will not learn so much about China or Chinese culture and life styles. This film turns out to be a satire on media, commercialism and "Big Shots". And for all those who don't want to do without love - you do not have to.

Written by: Eva Behrendt, Dorothea Maurer, Martina Koepp, Karin Schmidt-

participants of the Berlinale- film - workshop "At the Movies",2002

'Da wan' is a charming Chinese (and sort of American) comedy that centres around a cameraman Yoyo (Yu Ge) who's assigned to arrange a funeral for a famous American director, Tyler and the director's assistant, Lucy (Rosamund Kwan) helps Yoyo to complete the task. With excellent cinematography and lighting, and beautiful set designs, it is quite a visually likable. The humour isn't slapstick or like the toilet humour so often seen in American films. It's part of the satirical screenplay and mingles well with the plot.

Yu Ge is fantastic and he's hilarious without appearing 'obviously' funny. He brings out the character's honesty and naivety with conviction and is both identifiable and lovable to the viewers. Rosamund Kwan is charming and lovely. She and Yu Ge share a fine chemistry. And of course Donald Sutherland is great as usual. His scenes with both Ge and Kwan are endearing and funny.

Anyone interested in light comedy can pick this one but I'm not sure whether it'll appeal to all as the plot is a little different from the regular comedy...but I loved it.

It you plan to see this movie because you love Hong Kong Action, you will probably be disappointed. When I saw it some young kids left the cinema in the middle of the movie, since no one had been killed or beaten up yet.

For me this movie is more related to the American independent movie scene. The script is well written, the actors are excellent and the movie comments our society and life/death in general. Most of all it is a really fun movie. Totally unpredictable, totally wild at times, deep and philosophical at times, all in all the best comedy I have seen for at least a year!

I recommend this movie to you!

"Big Shot's Funeral" doesn't quite add up. First, if you dislike subtitles, look elsewhere, because 80% of the film is in Mandarin. Unfortunately, with Donald Sutherland featured on the DVD jacket, you could easily be mislead into thinking this was not a foreign film. The idea of a "sponsored funeral" is a good one, but unfortunately is beaten to death for 100 minutes, which is way too long for a one joke movie. I can't say I didn't laugh, but it was a real chore to keep up with the rapidly changing subtitles. Definitely has very limited re-watch value, and because of the language barrier, loses something in the translation. - MERK