Da wan (2001)

Yankie director Don Tyler faces mounting insecurity and declining health while on location in Beijing, so his assistant hires down-and-out camerman YoYo to take the reins. Scrambling, ... See full summary »

Director:

Xiaogang Feng

Writers:

Xiaogang Feng, Xiaoming Li,

Stars:

You Ge, Rosamund Kwan, Donald Sutherland

5 wins & 1 nomination.

Cast

Credited cast:
You Ge	...	YoYo
Rosamund Kwan	...	Lucy
Donald Sutherland	...	Tyler
Da Ying	...	Louis Wang
Paul Mazursky	...	Studio boss
Rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Christopher Barden	...	Peter
Chengru Li
Ada Shen	...	Lucy (voice)
Hanyu Zhang

Storyline

Yankie director Don Tyler faces mounting insecurity and declining health while on location in Beijing, so his assistant hires down-and-out camerman YoYo to take the reins. Scrambling, studio boss sells the sagging picture to a Japanese media company. But YoYo is determined to upstage the whole production by granting the director's wish to have a grand "comedy funeral". To raise the money for it, he auctions off advertising and sponsorships for the funeral to companies around the world. But wait...is Don getting better?

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Plot Keywords:

funeral | assistant | chinese | coma | advertising | 

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Genres:

Comedy | Drama

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated PG for thematic elements, language and brief partial nudity

Details

Country:

China Hong Kong

Language:

Mandarin English Japanese

Release Date:

21 December 2001 (China)

Also Known As:

Big Shot's Funeral

Filming Locations:

Beijing, China

Box Office

Budget:

$3,300,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend:

$646 (USA) (17 January 2003)

Gross:

$646 (USA) (17 January 2003)

Company Credits

Production Co:

China Film Group, Columbia Pictures Corporation, Columbia Pictures Film Production Asia

Technical Specs

Runtime:

100 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital SDDS

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Connections

References The Last Emperor (1987)

User Reviews

A delightful comedy about a funeral

'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.