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Bookmark this pageShanghai Surprise (1986)
Director: Jim Goddard
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
A water-coloured, watered-down romantic comedy set in Shanghai in 1937, with the helplessly miscast Madonna (would you buy a used Bible from this woman?) trading on her ironic stage name to play an American missionary. She, with the aid of Penn's gaudy tie salesman, is desperately seeking 'Faraday's Flowers', a hidden opium stockpile which will help relieve the suffering of soldiers wounded in the war with Japan. The action is simply an implausible chain of events sensationally strung together, a Saturday morning serial formula which worked for Raiders of the Lost Ark; here, the heavy-handed manipulation of genre ingredients simply results in vulgar, often embarrassing, kitsch.Author: SGo
Cast & crew
Director: Jim Goddard
Producer: John Kohn
Cast: Sean Penn, Madonna, Paul Freeman, Richard Griffiths, Philip Sayer, Clyde Kusatsu, Kay Tong Lim, Michael Aldridge full cast
Genre(s): Comedy
Duration: 97 mins
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