FUNERAL MARCH (PG) 2001
SYNOPSIS: May contain spoilers... From Mov3.Com: Daughter of a wealthy family Kwun Yi suffers from a serious disease and offers 200,000 to find Siu Duen to arrange her Western style funeral. Siu Duen does not want her to give up on herself, but still helplessly looks for locations with her in America. During their days together, they learn about each other and Siu Duen even successfully convinces Kwun Yi to return to Hong Kong for therapy. Actually, he hides a big secret...... Hong Kong drama directed by Joe Ma. Starring Eason Chan, Charlene Choi, Candy Lo & Kenneth Tsang. Running time: 90 mins.   OFFICIAL WEBSITE: http://emg-funeralmarch.com [Chinese text]    CINEMAS & SCREENING TIMES: Sydney CitySearch
HEROIC-CINEMA'S REVIEW: With a title like Funeral March, you can hardly expect it to be cheery and uplifting and boy does it not disappoint in the tragedy department.
Kwun Yi [Charlene Choi] is a wealthy cancer patient, convinced that she will die soon. She goes about arranging her funeral in advance, enlisting Siu Duen [Eason Chan], a funeral organiser to arrange the BIG day. She's impressed by his pride in his work and his attention to details. It gets better, he convinces her not to give up, she gets better and he disappears.
Needless to say, it all ends in tears and I'm not going to tell you who carks it.
The good thing about seeing a film like this is that it makes you realise that life is very short and it's pointless to quibble over small details. You just want to get out of the cinema, run to the park, feel the grass on your feet, sing or do cartwheels or something. i.e. live life to the fullest.
Funeral March exerted this effect all right but not because it had an uplifting message but because everything in the film is so underplayed that it got, well, a little boring. What started off as its strength (not being soppily sentimental) became its downfall as things began to seem like a chore towards the 2 hour mark.
Rating: 5½ caskets out of 10 Reviewed by Ching Yee   MORE REVIEWS: Tim Youngs at Kowloonside.com Paul Fonoroff at South China Morning Post

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