The Joy Luck Club Reviews

I always had a weak spot for Wayne Wang’s work and this movie is probably his best I have seen so far. I have still have to see his older movies but I was really impressed by this one. After this movie, he would finally make a movie not focusing on the Asian community, ‘Smoke’, and this flick was once again a tremendous critical success. Anyway, coming back to our main feature, it focuses on four women who are all Chinese immigrants living in San Francisco and we see them as they gather to play mahjong, eat and discuss life. Through the movie, we discover their struggle with the American culture, especially concerning their relationship with their daughters who are a torn between between Chinese and US lifestyle. Since I’m myself an immigrant, son of an immigrant, I had no problem to connect with these characters, even though the gap between the French and Dutch culture is not as big as the gap between the American and Chinese culture. In my opinion, it is one of the best movies dealing with this topic and I thought it was really interesting. To conclude, I thought it was quite a fascinating flick and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you are interested in this subject.

This movie is a gem. A powerful 8 short stories, compacted into a great movie. This movie tells the stories of 4 China-born mothers with their own American-born daughters. Each of the individual's hardship was portrayed beautifully, and it was amazing how the bitter past of the mothers instill strength into their own daughters' present turbulence.

The year that this film was released, I had a girlfriend who liked to go out with me, but only when she planned it & was in control of the date. On one week-end night, I was supposed to go see Joy Luck Club with her, but since it was at my suggestion, she, as always, phoned me to tell that she felt like maybe she was (conveniently) coming down with something. Now don't get me wrong, she wanted us to see this film, just not at my suggestion (I'll skip any psycho-analyzations as to why she was always like this).
Well I had finally had it, so I called her bluff, & told her that if there was a chance she'd get sick or somethin', we should just call the whole night off.
Before she could respond, I hung up the phone & then went to go see this movie by myself, more to piss her off than anything else.
By the time this stunningly moving, mother-daughter generation-crossing epic-fare was over, my hairy pimp-ass found it quite difficult to refrain from repeatingly dabbing at that "something in my eye" that seemed annoyingly persistent during the final two sob-strewn scenes. Because of my gf, there I was sitting alone in a theatre, effeminately misty-eyed over a god@mn chick-flick.
Right there & then, I knew that my relationship with my then-girlfriend was over.
Cuz no one makes me cry my own tears.
No one.

This is a tale of four Chinese women and their struggles in dealing with their mothers. Through a series of flashbacks, the Joy Luck Club asks the question: Can mothers and daughters truly understand one another when their cultures are literally oceans apart?
By the end of the movie, hanky in hand, the answer is a resounding yes.

I preferred the mothers' stories about life in China - luscious visuals with tales of tragedy, hope and determination. While at times the daughters come off as clueless brats, I could still relate with their disconnect with their mothers.