| Going into this with Dummy Mummy, Without A Baby fresh in my mind, I wasn't expecting anything anymore from something DIRECTED by Joe Ma. How wonderful it is to be wrong sometimes though. Funeral March is not a triumph that will stand next to similar works like Juliet In Love or C'est La Vie, Mon Cheri but it's a very solid romantic drama nonetheless. Charlene Choi plays a young woman diagnosed with cancer and she enlists funeral director Duan (Eason Chan). Along the way he gives her meaning and strength back to consider a possible life saving operation. Beautifully shot and scored (Ma sure likes to fill his films with wall to wall music), this is a work with unexpected subtlety. Eason and Charlene are good together in roles that requires more from them than just playing versions of themselves, like some pop stars do. If you've seen way too many movies, some of you will spot the plot twist before your normal moviegoer but it doesn't detract from what is a touching little drama. |
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