BIG SHOT'S FUNERAL

Year: 2001
USA: Sony Pictures Classics
UK: Columbia Tristar Films (UK)
Cast: Donald Sutherland, Paul Mazursky, Ge You, Rosamund Kwan, Da Ying
Director: Xiaogang Feng
Country: China
Language: Mandarin (English subtitles)
UK: 100 mins
USA Rated: PG for thematic elements, language and brief partial nudity
UK Certificate: PG contains mild language and violence
USA Release Date: 17 January 2003 (Limited Release - San Francisco)
UK Release Date: 15 November 2002 (Limited Release)

Synopsis

World famous film director Don Tyler (Donald Sutherland) is surrounded by hundreds of costumed extras in China's fantastic Forbidden City - for centuries home to the most powerful emperors in the world - when creative drought hits and he doesn't even have any idea where to put the camera. Tossed off the picture by his studio boss (Paul Mazursky), his depression is relieved only by an unlikely friendship with a down-on-his-luck Chinese cameraman, YoYo (Ge You). The director's melancholia turns darkly serious when he falls into a coma, and it turns out his last wish was that YoYo give him a wacky "comedy funeral" to prepare him for Buddhist reincarnation. When the costs of the spectacular event spin wildly out of control, can YoYo hold it all together by selling prime ad space at this unique funeral to be televised around the world? And more importantly for YoYo, can he convince Tyler's lovely assistant Lucy (Rosamund Kwan) that he isn't just selling out Tyler to the highest bidder?