The making of some movies is so problematic that the resulting picture gets saddled with unnecessary baggage. As a result of this, it may become impossible for it to be judged fairly on its own merits. Such was the case of Ishtar, with its highly contentious shoot and cost overruns. Or what about Heaven’s Gate and director Cimino’s inability to reign in the material or his worst impulses?
A legendarily troubled shoot was 1986’s Shanghai Surprise, a catastrophic failure which nearly destroyed British indie studio Handmade Films. Thankfully, the studio which began with Monty Python’s Life of Brian would live on to make at least one more stone-cold classic, namely Withnail & I. This studio was the baby of Denis O’Brien and George Harrison, the latter of which I will come back to later.
The stars here are Sean Penn and Madonna, who were arguably the world’s most newsworthy married couple at the time. This marriage was relatively short, with a great deal of drama public and private. Doubtlessly, both the marriage and this production suffered from Penn’s behavior, such as physically assaulting paparazzi.
I wonder what anybody’s objective was in making this picture. It is set in WWII-era Shanghai, so it would be a hard-sell to the MTV generation, even if Madonna is one of the leads. While Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom was set in a similar time and place, that was an action-adventure film and a sequel to a blockbuster. Surprise is a (supposedly) romantic (alleged) comedy seemingly aiming for a vibe akin to the output of the UK’s Ealing Studio in the 30’s and 40s.
The critics eviscerated this movie, largely for the performances, though they also seemed unable to separate the finished work from the behind-the-scenes drama making headlines at the time.
Of the actors, let’s first talk about Penn. He plays things very broadly, almost as if his character from Fast Times at Ridgemont High accidentally time-traveled to this earlier period. He is essentially a living cartoon here, but he’s not bad at that and the approach isn’t far off from what a movie like this requires. That said, somebody should have reigned him in a bit and there’s nothing here that suggests he would become a prestigious actor one day.
Madonna, on the other hand, is obviously giving her all but is terrible just the same. She’s like somebody who knows the notes to a song but not how pay it with any kind of style. At one point, she doesn’t even roll her eyes believably. The only time she is remotely believable is when she gives Penn a coy look, which she had already been doing expertly for years in music videos. Strike that: she’s most effective when she knees a guy in the crotch towards the end of the film. Wonder how much practice she had doing that move prior to this picture
One actor who fares best here is Richard Griffiths but, hey, I have never seen a performance from him that was less than fully convincing. Along with Paul Freeman (evil archeologist from Raiders of the Lost Ark), he is in an opening sequence set in a panicked evacuation just ahead of Japanese invaders. Griffiths just wants to save his own skin while Freeman is trying to save a massive amount of opium.
In that sequence, a treacherous Chinese officer will get his hands blown off when he tries to open an explosive pack in Freeman’s money belt. That character will later reappear with a pair of replacement hands made of porcelain. I guess that material could clean easily but…porcelain, really?! Wouldn’t those hands break pretty easily? And, if they break, you just know they’ll never be able to really successfully glue them together again. Ever tried that with a chipped or broken coffee mug?
I said I would circle back to Harrison, so here’s where I talk about the music, a score by him and Michael Kamen with occasional songs only by Harrison. Those songs have superficial trappings of oriental music, which I’m certain was well-intentioned. Regardless, the overall sound of these tracks feel incongruous with whatever is happening on-screen at the time. As for the moment when “Chopsticks” accompanies Penn and Madonna trying to get out of wicker baskets…um, that.
Few movies have an actor in it provide a concise review of the picture they are in at the time, yet Madonna does when she yells, “Not funny!” after she falls backwards into a pen full of duck shit. Shanghai Surprise isn’t as appalling as legend would have it. Instead, it is largely forgettable, which may be even worse. Avoid, even if you are morbidly curious.
Dir: Jim Goddard
Starring Sean Penn, Madonna, Paul Freeman, Richard Griffiths
Watched on Starpix