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.
Sept.16 to Sept. 22 The “anti-communist train” with then-president Chiang Kai-shek’s (蔣介石) face plastered on the engine puffed along the “sugar railway” (糖業鐵路) in May 1955, drawing enthusiastic crowds at 103 stops covering nearly 1,200km. An estimated 1.58 million spectators were treated to propaganda films, plays and received free sugar products. By this time, the state-run Taiwan Sugar Corporation (台糖, Taisugar) had managed to connect the previously separate east-west lines established by Japanese-era sugar factories, allowing the anti-communist train to travel easily from Taichung to Pingtung’s Donggang Township (東港). Last Sunday’s feature (Taiwan in Time: The sugar express) covered the inauguration of the
The corruption cases surrounding former Taipei Mayor and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) head Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) are just one item in the endless cycle of noise and fuss obscuring Taiwan’s deep and urgent structural and social problems. Even the case itself, as James Baron observed in an excellent piece at the Diplomat last week, is only one manifestation of the greater problem of deep-rooted corruption in land development. Last week the government announced a program to permit 25,000 foreign university students, primarily from the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia, to work in Taiwan after graduation for 2-4 years. That number is a
In a stark demonstration of how award-winning breakthroughs can come from the most unlikely directions, researchers have won an Ig Nobel prize for discovering that mammals can breathe through their anuses. After a series of tests on mice, rats and pigs, Japanese scientists found the animals absorb oxygen delivered through the rectum, work that underpins a clinical trial to see whether the procedure can treat respiratory failure. The team is among 10 recognized in this year’s Ig Nobel awards (see below for more), the irreverent accolades given for achievements that “first make people laugh, and then make them think.” They are not
This Qing Dynasty trail takes hikers from renowned hot springs in the East Rift Valley, up to the top of the Coastal Mountain Range, and down to the Pacific Short vacations to eastern Taiwan often require choosing between the Rift Valley with its pineapple fields, rice paddies and broader range of amenities, or the less populated coastal route for its ocean scenery. For those who can’t decide, why not try both? The Antong Traversing Trail (安通越嶺道) provides just such an opportunity. Built 149 years ago, the trail linked up these two formerly isolated parts of the island by crossing over the Coastal Mountain Range. After decades of serving as a convenient path for local Amis, Han settlers, missionaries and smugglers, the trail fell into disuse once modern roadways were built
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