Joy Luck Club

The flashbacks into the young lives of each mother is masterful storytelling filled with rich imagery.
But it is the everyday struggles of modern life with their daughters and the conflicts between them that most will easily recognize. In this way the movie does not exclude the general viewer from identifying with their own personal relationships with their mother, spouse, or friends.

This is one of the best technically engineered movies I have ever seen. The way in which the lives of the characters are weaved together is nothing short of genuis, and the movie slides flawlessly from the present to the past and back to the present again

The story of each mother's youth is both heartbreaking and wonderful at the same time, and with their somewhat broken english offer up an amazing amount of simple yet profound statements and insights as they tell their story and try to impart upon their daughters wisdom gained through both suffering and sacrifice.

The modern day entanglements of each daughter and their often tense relationships with their moms, show us in the end that no matter who we are, or where we come from, the bond between a mother and daughter is often a complex enigma, full of conflicting emotions.

Throughout all this, the main underlying issue is the trip to China one of the daughters is about to embark on, to meet for the first time, two sisters previously abandoned in wartime China while at the same time paying a personal tribute to her own mother.

If I had to flaw the movie it would be the constant onslaught on one?s emotions right up until the very end.
Nevertheless, I still give it 5 stars although I am sure this movie will appeal more to women.

FAVORITES MOVIE QUOTES:

"..and on that day, second wife's hair began to turn white"

"All around me I see the signs. My daughter looks but does not see. This is a house that will break into pieces"

"But Lena had no spirit, ..because I had none to give her"

"I like being tragic mom... I learned it from you"

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A feather. The feather of a swan. A feather that carries with it all the hopes and dreams of a Chinese woman who left everything behind as she fled to America. Her hopes and dreams of a daughter who would be born in America, speak "perfect American English", and implicitly, live happy and free of the horrors her mother had fled in China. So begins the "Joy Luck Club", a story of four such Chinese mothers, their struggles for self-discovery in China, and their daughters' equally powerful struggles in America. There are eight stories here, but one overarching theme unifies, reinforces, and amplifies the lesson of self-esteem and it's survival value.

Lindo (Tsai Chin) was sold as a young girl in China. The sale was cemented when she was four or so. She was delivered at age fifteen, to a pre-pubescent husband who likes to play with lizards and a mother-in-law who sees her as nothing more than a grandson factory. Her brilliant escape from this nightmare grips with the same force as her daughter Waverly's escape from a different sort of prison.

An Mei (Lisa Lu) was the daughter of a lowly Fourth Wife, a mere concubine in a patriarchal home. Dealing with her mother's death, and learning the importance of knowing one's worth, sets the stage for her daughter Rose's story. Played brilliantly by Rosalind Chao, Rose finds her voice, and discovers her worth, when coming to grips with a marriage gone sour.

Ying-Ying (France Nuyen) wasn't sold. She wasn't born into a hopeless situation. Hers is a story of self-betrayal, and its price. A self-betrayal so horrifying that it left her soul fractured, sometimes paralyzing her into a catatonic state, unconscious of everything in the world except for one unspeakable regret. In her daughter Lina she sees the same weakness of spirit, the same tragic humility, and, most gratifyingly, a way to recapture what she had previously surrendered. In the defining scene of their story, she tells Lina: "Do you know what you want, I mean from him? Then tell him now. Do not come back until he gives you those things. Losing him does not matter. It is you who will be found." In nurturing her daughter's self-affirmation, she makes huge strides in healing herself.

The feather is Suyuan's (Kieu Chinh). In her escape from China, she carries nothing but her dreams, and the memory of what she left behind in China. It is that story that closes the film, as her daughter June returns to China to discover her mother's past and to find her own fulfillment of her mother's hopes.