Tinsel town's (then) favorite bride and groom consummated their marriage with this abysmal comedy adventure, an aborted Indiana Jones rip-off set in (of all places) romantic China during the Japanese occupation. The project was obviously an excuse for a paid honeymoon abroad, but no amount of fun and games could possibly validate such an insult to the intelligence, which would have us accept Sean Penn as a romantic hero and Madonna as the chaste and innocent daughter of a local missionary, a joke of bad casting even her most loyal fans would have trouble defending (she can't play the role, at any rate). Ex-Beatle George Harrison obviously saw the film as an opportunity to peddle some forgettable songs, and using his producer's credit he was able to put his distinctive warble in every other scene. Bottom line: life is too short to waste even 90 minutes of it watching indulgent crap like this.
Review of Shanghai Surprise
