Funérailles d'enfer

While I appreciate the concept of wanting to share the cultural and religious tradition surrounding a Chinese funeral and the complicated relationships Chinese parents have over Chinese American children, this script is absolutely horrendous! The direction on pace, musical background to showcase the mood also doesn't do the concept any good. It's a shame that talented Chinese American actor Russell Wong and other actresses are not duly utilized for their talent. The script feels like a tired, outdated movie from the 90s (cue in Joy Luck Club) trying too hard to provide some comic relief that doesn't provide even so much as a chuckle. The script screams unbelievability and shenanigans inbeteeen makes no sense. It also makes no sense that all the children were completely clueless of any Chinese traditions. As a Chinese American who grew up with non Chinese Americans even I know some traditions. It's unrealistic that these children dropped from the planet Pluto and has a zero clue about ANY chinese culture and traditions.

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!

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.

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.

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