For those who are interested in East-meets-West stories, this is one of the more amusing films of the year. But following on the success of Oscar-winner Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (
In this contemporary comedy, Donald Sutherland plays world-famous director Don Tyler who has always been fond of Chinese culture. In the fantastic Forbidden City of Beijing, Tyler is surrounded by hundreds of costumed extras, trying to make a mega-budget re-make of The Last Emperor. He suffers such a creative block on the film set that he hardly knows where to place the camera.
Yo Yo is a cynical Chinese cameraman with who was hired by Asian-born, Western-educated Lucy, Tyler's personal assistant, to shoot footage for Tyler. Yo's unlikely friendship with Tyler helps relieve the depression Tyler feels over his creative block, but not for long. Tyler falls in a coma and his last wish is that Yo Yo throw him a wacky "comedy funeral."
PHOTO COURTESY OF BUENA VISTA
The story takes a rollercoaster ride through satire and absurdity as Yo Yo turns to best friend King, who has grand business ambitions but poor taste, to help him organize the funeral. As King intends to make the funeral a world-wide televised extravaganza, the costs become uncontrollable and the only thing Yo Yo and King can do is open bids to place advertisements in the funeral. An Italian brand of furniture supplies the bed for Tyler to lay on and Cozy Cola, Obituary Bird and other of Tyler's "close friends" take part as well. But in the midst of the unbridled craze for commercial placement, Tyler wakes up.
Director Feng excels at satirizing two things, the stereotyped Chinese fantasy and the entrepreneurial zeal which has begun sweeping through China. To make these two aspects work, Feng uses non-stop jokes and self-mockery during the advertising auction, focusing on China's rampant piracy problem and the mixed feelings towards Asian Americans. Ge You and Ying Da do a good job at making the most of these jokes.
Ying Da represents the upstart businessman with nothing but self-boasting and tackiness. And Ge You represents the jobless Beijing dweller suddenly disoriented by the wave of Westernization.
Strictly speaking, the plot transitions are not quite coherent and the ending is too predictable. But this hasn't stopped Big Shot's Funeral from becoming the best-selling local-made film ever in China, with box office receipts over 35 million renminbi (US$4.2 million), a number any Taiwanese director would envy.
Whether or not the film can cross over to Western audiences remains to be seen. Although the script has a Western context and there is the huge talent of Donald Sutherland, many of the jokes are delivered in Mandarin. The Mandarin voice and expressions of the actors are part of the comedy, making it is hard for non-Chinese viewers to appreciate. Some of the jokes are even based on Chinese word play and cannot be translated. The film's foreign distributors have their work cut out for them.
That US assistance was a model for Taiwan’s spectacular development success was early recognized by policymakers and analysts. In a report to the US Congress for the fiscal year 1962, former President John F. Kennedy noted Taiwan’s “rapid economic growth,” was “producing a substantial net gain in living.” Kennedy had a stake in Taiwan’s achievements and the US’ official development assistance (ODA) in general: In September 1961, his entreaty to make the 1960s a “decade of development,” and an accompanying proposal for dedicated legislation to this end, had been formalized by congressional passage of the Foreign Assistance Act. Two
March 31 to April 6 On May 13, 1950, National Taiwan University Hospital otolaryngologist Su You-peng (蘇友鵬) was summoned to the director’s office. He thought someone had complained about him practicing the violin at night, but when he entered the room, he knew something was terribly wrong. He saw several burly men who appeared to be government secret agents, and three other resident doctors: internist Hsu Chiang (許強), dermatologist Hu Pao-chen (胡寶珍) and ophthalmologist Hu Hsin-lin (胡鑫麟). They were handcuffed, herded onto two jeeps and taken to the Secrecy Bureau (保密局) for questioning. Su was still in his doctor’s robes at
Last week the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said that the budget cuts voted for by the China-aligned parties in the legislature, are intended to force the DPP to hike electricity rates. The public would then blame it for the rate hike. It’s fairly clear that the first part of that is correct. Slashing the budget of state-run Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) is a move intended to cause discontent with the DPP when electricity rates go up. Taipower’s debt, NT$422.9 billion (US$12.78 billion), is one of the numerous permanent crises created by the nation’s construction-industrial state and the developmentalist mentality it
Experts say that the devastating earthquake in Myanmar on Friday was likely the strongest to hit the country in decades, with disaster modeling suggesting thousands could be dead. Automatic assessments from the US Geological Survey (USGS) said the shallow 7.7-magnitude quake northwest of the central Myanmar city of Sagaing triggered a red alert for shaking-related fatalities and economic losses. “High casualties and extensive damage are probable and the disaster is likely widespread,” it said, locating the epicentre near the central Myanmar city of Mandalay, home to more than a million people. Myanmar’s ruling junta said on Saturday morning that the number killed had
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