Reviews: DVD

Little Miss Sunshine

Directed by Jonathan Dayton, Valerie Faris, starring Toni Collette, Steve Carell

This black comedy has much relevance in today's China where hundreds of contest shows bloom and corrupt the minds of countless little girls who want to grow up as supergirls. It is a pity that Chinese videophiles are not more responsive to this Oscar nominee.

Framed as a road movie, it offers a satirical take on the notion of success. China is a success-crazed culture, where the annual college entrance exam alone yields more gags of black comedy, but the format of the road movie is too episodic for most Chinese, who grew up on a heavy diet of melodrama.

The closest Chinese movie may be Zhang Yang's Getting Home, about a migrant worker who drags a co-worker's dead body across hundreds of kilometers. It is also a road comedy that is at once kooky, amusing and deeply human.

Raymond Zhou

(China Daily 02/14/2007 page20)