DVD & Blu-rays Released April 15, 2003

Desmond Doyle is devastated when his philandering wife abandons their family on the day after Christmas. His unemployment and the fact that there is no woman in the house to care for the children, Evelyn, Noel and Brendan, make it clear to the authorities that his is an untenable situation. The Catholic Church and the Irish courts decide the Doyle children put into Church-run orphanages. Although a sympathetic judge assures Desmond that when his financial situation reverses, he will be able to get his children back; money is hard to come by. During that time, Evelyn and her brothers suffer the abuses of living in orphanages while Desmond struggles to secure finances. Now he must battle the courts to get his children back.

This is the story of what happens when a famous director (Sutherland) travels to China to film a historical epic about the last emperor of the Qing Dynasty. As the title suggests, there's also something about the director's planned funeral. Specifically, as he's about to die, his crew discover that he doesn't the money to pay for it, so they concoct a scheme to use "product endorsements" of the funeral by major companies.