The Joy Luck Club Film Review

Amy Tan's best-selling novel 'The Joy Luck Club' was brought to the big screen in 1993 by director Wayne Wang and producer Oliver Stone. The film told a story of the strong relationship held together by both mothers and daughters, and portrayed a strong picture of the hardship faced by women in China, compared to the reasonably "safer" upbringing found in America. The story itself is heartfelt and moving and the characters are all strong and meaningful, each having their own place in the large web of stories that are told as the film unfolds.

'The Joy Luck Club' refers to four women who have migrated to America from China years ago. These women: An Mei, Ying Ying, Lindo, and Suyuan make up the basis for all the flashbacks throughout the film. The present-day storyline is set with a large family get-together where the departure of June, Suyuan's daughter, is being celebrated as she is traveling to China to meet her two half-sisters, whom she has never met before. From here the film unfolds with well-ordered flashbacks that depict the lives of the mothers and the hardship they went through in olden-day China, as well as showing the troubles of race and culture faced by the daughters as they live their lives in modern day America. Each separate storyline has a deep power behind it, where a strong message has been portrayed by Wang.

In total there are 16 flashbacks throughout the film, most of which contain stories concerning separate characters of the one large family. Therefore, the development of each character isn't given any great chance to mould and shape itself over the duration of the film. Instead, the lives and events which entail these characters connect to form one big picture of the importance of family, respect, and freedom. However, each story has one thing in common, which is portraying the important relationship between mother and daughter, which becomes apparent as a major theme as the movie progresses.

'The Joy Luck Club' is a movie laden with multiple themes. It was likely Wang's aim for this movie was to capture these themes for the audience and allow us to feel sympathetic for the characters involved. For this reason identity is explored throughout the movie, where the mothers have grown up in a stable culture with set rules of life; however their daughters have moved between countries and are continually faced with new problems and adaptations to new cultures where different things are expected of them as human beings. Perhaps another strong theme from the movie deals with expectation and reality. This theme arises from the mothers love for their daughters, and their belief that taking them away from where the problems lie will bring them happiness, in this case America. But the reality is the freedom sought for in America is not always acceptable to either of the mothers.

Director Wayne Wang has used various techniques to develop his characters and concept. One of these techniques is his use of male characters in the film. There is not a single male character that is in any way central to the main plot or closely connected to the relationship each daughter holds with her mother. They are there simply to portray the power men have over women in the Chinese culture and to cause conflict to the main characters as a way of sparking emotions and feelings between mother and daughter. As a result no male characters are found particularly likeable, apart from June's deaf piano teacher, and perhaps Ted who, although opts to divorce with his wife for another woman, is really a nice man at heart, and shows this in the way he deals about his decision. Otherwise the male characters are all rude, abusive, disgusting and stereotypical of "wife-beaters" and men who want to have power in a relationship, shown strongly in the flashback of Ying Ying and her abusive husband, as well as Lena's flashback with her husband Harold, and hisdecision that everything should be 50/50 - these were both very strong scenes.

The expectations each mother holds for her daughter is another concept Wang has implemented in order to create the solid bonds required to adequately portray his message. Each bond is special in its own way, for example An-Mei's concubine mother suicides in one scene in order to give her daughter position in the house. It is this example along with many others that give great backup power towards the central message of the movie. Wang has also gone to great depth in order to make it clear that the mothers all have strong expectations for their daughters and want only the best for them - which is to keep them in a life where they are free of ruling powers and a mainly chauvinist culture.

On a whole the film is slow-moving and cuts back and forth repetitively. The hardest thing is to follow the names and match each mother to her daughter to understand the troubles they have been through. Despite this the richness in each flashback was delightful to watch and added a strong effect to the film. Wang embarked upon this challenging project with only hopeful expectations that it would reach out to an audience who understood the meaningful concepts he was trying to portray, and in the end he was able to do this successfully.