The basic setup is there - You Ge plays a likable cameraman given the funny task of creating a cross-cultural comedy funeral. It's not anything world-breaking but it should be enough to carry a comedy.
However, the follow-through just isn't funny. It drags and never goes in any direction but the most obvious, until the vaguely amusing end. I found myself extremely bored with this movie. All the main actors are likable, or I probably would have stopped it halfway through.
For all the people talking about how you need to speak Mandarin to understand this movie, or you need to understand that China has commercialism to understand this movie, or you need to understand that people like comedies to like this movie, these comments are more-or-less groundless. Probably most useful would be to understand the Mainland Chinese art cinema world, where the artistic movies about Chinese history receive all the foreign attention and acclaim, and domestically popular pictures such as Feng Xiaogang's don't. It won't actually improve your movie experience, it will just give some of the boring speeches at the beginning some context.
However, the follow-through just isn't funny. It drags and never goes in any direction but the most obvious, until the vaguely amusing end. I found myself extremely bored with this movie. All the main actors are likable, or I probably would have stopped it halfway through.
For all the people talking about how you need to speak Mandarin to understand this movie, or you need to understand that China has commercialism to understand this movie, or you need to understand that people like comedies to like this movie, these comments are more-or-less groundless. Probably most useful would be to understand the Mainland Chinese art cinema world, where the artistic movies about Chinese history receive all the foreign attention and acclaim, and domestically popular pictures such as Feng Xiaogang's don't. It won't actually improve your movie experience, it will just give some of the boring speeches at the beginning some context.