The Joy Luck Club

The Joy Luck Club--fan trailer



Background

Although "Joy Luck Club" was finished in 1989, which is not at the time we discussed(1970s). However, the whole story was stating the time during 1970s and 1980s that Chinese American struggling in the United States. As a result, we categorize this film into our subject.

About the film

It focus on four Chinese American immigrant families in San Francisco, California, who start a club known as "the Joy Luck Club, " playing the Chinese game of Mahjong for money while feasting on a variety of foods. The book (same as the film) is structured somewhat like a mahjong game, with four parts divided into four sections to create sixteen chapters. The three mothers and four daughters (one mother, Suyuan Woo, dies before the novel opens) share stories about their lives in the form of vignettes. Each part is preceded by a parable relating to the game. The stories which the film shooted also states the struggling for their identity in the US, which can found in the conversation between Rose Hsu Jordan and his husband's mother. She thinks that Rose is Vietnamese while Rose thinks herself an American. The movie revealed the view point of the society, the lives of Asian American and some cruelty behind each story. Moreover, according to Amy Tan's (the writer of this film)official website, the film won shortlisted BAFTA Film award, best screenplay adaptation and shortlisted WGA Award, best screenplay adaptation.

Let's see what Amy Tan said about this story

Mainly, we can see three points:
*It comes from her own experiences-----11:08~11:23
*Her mother influences her very much(eg. metaphor & warning)-----04:40~04:58, 21:22~23:00
*Using her imagination-----23:00~23:20
As a result, the story came with well formed and truely touching.


Director: Wayne Wang

Characters

Mothers
Suyuan Woo
An-Mei Hsu
Lindo Jong
Ying-Ying "Betty" St. Clairv
Daughters
Jing-Mei "June" Woo
Rose Hsu Jordan
Waverly Jong
Lena St. Clair

About Writer

Amy Tan (Chinese: 譚恩美; pinyin: Tán Enmei) (born February 19, 1952) is an American writer of Chinese descent whose works explore mother-daughter relationships. In 1993, Tan's adaptation of her most popular fiction work, The Joy Luck Club, became a commercially successful film.
Tan has written several other books, including The Kitchen God's Wife, The Hundred Secret Senses, and The Bonesetter's Daughter, and a collection of non-fiction essays entitled The Opposite of Fate: A Book of Musings. Her most recent book, Saving Fish From Drowning, explores the tribulations experienced by a group of people who disappear while on an art expedition in the jungles of Burma. In addition, Tan has written two children's books: The Moon Lady (1992) and Sagwa, the Chinese Siamese Cat (1994), which was turned into an animated series airing on PBS. She has also appeared on PBS in a short spot encouraging children to write. (cited from Wilipedia, 2010)

Review

The review is wrote by James Berardinelli, 1993:
The Joy Luck Club, as stated in the movie's opening narrative, is a collection of four aging Chinese women bound together more by hope than joy or luck. The four women - Suyuan (Kieu Chinh), Lindo (Tsai Chin), Ying Ying (France Nuyen), and An Mei (Lisa Lu) - came to America many years ago to escape China's feudal society for the promise of the United States' democracy. Now, however, Suyuan has died and the three surviving members of the club invite her daughter June (Ming-Na Wen) to take her place. June belongs to the "new" generation, those of Chinese heritage who grew up speaking English and learning American customs. Also of roughly the same age are Waverly (Tamlyn Tomita), Lindo's daughter; Lena (Lauren Tom), Ying Ying's daughter; and Rose (Rosalind Chao), An Mei's daughter. The Joy Luck Club tells of the varied difficulties and tragedies involved in these mother/daughter relationships.

Co-writer Ronald Bass (who, along with Amy Tan, adapted from Tan's novel) says that there are sixteen separate stories in The Joy Luck Club. Since I didn't count, I can't verify this statement, but it sounds about right. Taken as a whole, these vignettes combine to lend greater meaning to the whole. The Joy Luck Club is the sum total of its parts with common themes giving solid grounding and greater resonance to the overall film. As Bass comments, "I saw all the mothers' and daughters' stories as facets of the same experience. Put together, they formed a mosaic. That's the genius of the book, and if we cut it down to just a couple of stories it would be like any other movie."

The stories are not related in such a manner as to seem pared down or truncated, nor is their presentation confusing, thanks to a cleverly-orchestrated framing scene with the principal characters gathered together. However, it is apparent that a lot more could have been told, and we're left wondering about all that we didn't get to see. The characters are mostly well-developed, but it's tantalizing to consider how much fuller some of them could have been with a different plot structure.

The Joy Luck Club is clearly - perhaps too clearly - an adaptation of a book. The dialogue is often too poetic to be real, and the story too clearly plotted to be acceptable as anything more than an imperfect reflection of the world we live in. The line between drama and melodrama is a fine one, and, while The Joy Luck Club most often successfully navigates the tightrope, there are times when it slips and comes across as heavy-handed. This film is no stranger to moments of manipulation.

The characters are The Joy Luck Club's real strength. Many are played by more than one actor (as children then adults, for example), but all transitions are smooth and seamless. It's as easy to accept both a little girl and the beautiful, sophisticated-looking Tamlyn Tomita as Waverly, and that's because the characters transcend the performers portraying them.

It's fascinating and satisfying the way the diverse threads are knitted together into a single tapestry. The Joy Luck Club's message is one of hope -- that catharsis and emotional fulfillment often come through tragedy. Sure, a lot of bad things happen during the course of this film, but at the end, the tears are of happiness and new beginnings, not loss.