Redundant and unnecessary.

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Everyone knows "Shanghai Surprise" (1986), starring Sean Penn and Madonna when they were still very young, is regarded as one of the worst films ever made. Don't believe it. I'm not saying it's a good film, but it's certainly not one of the worst ever made.People complain about the film and the acting as if it was supposed to be a serious drama when, in fact, it's a goofy romantic-comedy adventure a la "High Road to China" or "Romancing the Stone", but with way more talk and less action. I'd also compare it to "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom" but the Indiana Jones films are in a whole different league.Like I said, people complain about, say, Madonna's acting, but she strikes the right note for a semi-goofy romantic-comedy/adventure. It's low camp all the way. What other approach can you expect in this type of movie? The highlights are seeing Madonna and Sean when they were so young (not that I'm a fan of either), as well as George Harrison's original songs, the Hong Kong locations, a good Bond-parody villain and the amusing shenanigans throughout.If "Shanghai Surprise" had added two or three great action sequences the movie would have been better received. As it is, there are NO great action scenes. There are quite a few scenes of quasi-violence and intrigue, but no memorable action sequences like Indiana Jones. But, then again, maybe "Shanghai Surprise" can be respected for daring to be different by not catering to those with ADHD.GRADE: C+

I'm not a fan of Penn or Madonna, but this movie is undoubtedly the most underrated film on IMDb. I can't believe that Shanghai Surprise user rating is only 2.6 and is on it's way to bottom 100.The story here is very good, Penn was okay and Madonna was not as bad as in other her films, so I rated it strong 6 out of 10, not an 0.1 less but not an 0.1 more. Perhaps it's not an excellent adventure, but still very entertaining, sometimes funny,and with beautiful cinematography as a bonus. Enjoy!

If nothing else this film has heart. I remember years ago all the hype that was injected into this film aimed at adolescent girls (i.e. Madonna fans), with the angle being that they would get to see the then infamous couple of Penn and Madonna frolic on the big silver screen.Well, it didn't take a rocket scientist to know where this film was headed. Like with all films when the hype exceeds previously good, yet unhyped, films you know something's up.The story itself isn't bad. It's kind of hackneyed at points, but that's its genre, and for what the film is it works after a fashion. There're only two real problems with this film;1) Madonna's then acting capabilities. It's not bad for a performer who's more used to singing and dancing, and it's unfair to expect anything more from her, but her acting talent then was what it was; lacking. Let's face it, she's a better singer and dancer than an actress, and this comes from a man who is not one of her fans.2)The second problem is the actual filming and execution of this film. The storie's there, the acting's there (Madonna not withstanding), and so forth, but there's little in the way of coverage or good cinematography. It's passing. It gets the job done. But the shots are those of a low budget flick. I believe there was a real opportunity to create atmosphere with good camera direction, but the focus of the film wasn't art so much as it was to capitalize on the then Madonna-Penn phenomenon (the film itself was riding the coat tails of Indiana Jones and The High Road to China films).And that last part is really too bad, because this film could've been much more. At least when I saw it on HBO years ago the print I saw then was clear, corrected, crisp and otherwise very viewable. Today I had a gander at the recently released DVD, and it looks like the owners of the property took an old 16mm broadcast print and had some fly by night tranfer company encode it on a DVD master; complete with a couple of scratches on grainy film stock.In short, if you didn't like it the first time, then don't bother with the DVD because it's even worse. If you got a spare evening, and your friend loaned you the disk, or it's available at the library, then give it a look, but don't expect too much.

Who thought this up? It must have looked brilliant when they got Sean and Madonna in the same movie. Unfortunately Sean goes through the whole movie looking like a kid pretending he's in a movie and Madonna as usual just plays herself, badly. Nothing to see here, move along folks...