The Joy Luck Club

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Director: Wayne Wang

Stars: Tamlyn Tomita, Andrew McCarthy, Kieu Chinh, Tsai Chin, Lisa Lu, France Nuyen

Year: 1993 Running Time: 133 mins Rating:

Four young Chinese women born in America explore their pasts - via a series of flashbacks - with their mothers, who were born in feudal China. Based on the 1989 novel by Amy Tan (who has a cameo in the film), it's a sincere story of friendship based around the Joy Luck Club, a group of older women who meet once a week to play mah jong. Director Wayne Wang crafts an intiguing portrait of China before the revolution and an intricate web of moving stories.

Review

A very well acted and presented story of Chinese-American life and the chequered histories that lead to the formation of a family network.

But - and here comes the downside - it's also a story which makes it difficult for us to keep track of its various threads.

These are all enthralling and beautifully done - but not quite memorably enough to enable us to can keep a grip on its overall pattern.

What with the film covering the stories of four daughters in America, their mothers in China and sometimes their mothers' mothers, it's hard to remember who has done what or had what done to them, and that deficiency strikes at the humanity so vital to the film's appeal.

Still, nostalgia buffs will get a kick out of seeing Sixties' stars France Nuyen, Lisa Lu, Tsai Chin and Kieu Chinh all delivering first-rate performances under Wayne Wang's direction.