I'm really surprised by the extremely negative reviews and poor box- office results for this expensively made and -- to my mind -- quite entertaining movie. Admittedly, I thought the violence a bit overdone, but the characters seem to weather all the storms with surprisingly little pain. Perhaps there were also too many twists in the narrative, but it certainly kept moving at an admirably fast clip. Production values are absolutely superb. Perhaps Madonna is not always photographed to her advantage, but you can't look luscious all the time, and I thought that she and Penn delivered quite charismatic performances. The support cast was great too.And the wonderful music score from George Harrison was an added delight. And I've no complaints whatever with my Artisan DVD. I thought it was perfect. In all, 93 fast-moving, adventurous minutes.
Review of Shanghai Surprise
