The Joy Luck Club Reviews and Ratings


  • patk11
    November 10, 2009
    patk11
    excellent movie.. a great chick flick
  • WizardsOfWaverlyPlaceFan4Life
    November 8, 2009
    WizardsOfWaverlyPlaceFan4Life
    I love this film! Everyone one in it does a really great job and all the stories from each of the women are so sad, heartbreaking and really inspiring. It's such a sad film and always brings tears to my eyes. I've lost count how many times i've seen this film. I don't have a favo...( read more)rite story as each one is so sad and they are all so heartbreaking! A great film that i reccomend to all.
  • 339z
    September 19, 2009
    339z
    wow umn just seen this movie 4 the 1st time n think that this is a good movie 2 watch....its got a good cast of actors/actressess throughout this movie....i think that tamlyn tomita, rosalind chao, ming na wen, ming-na, michael paul chan, lisa lu, france nuyen, kieu chinh, lauren...( read more) tom, diane baker play good roles/parts throughout this movie...i think that the director of this drama movie had done a great job of directing this movie because you never know what 2 expect throughout this movie its a brilliant movie but its a sad movie as well but its a good drama/romance movie 2 watch n its enjoyable
  • SusanKSouthwick
    September 3, 2009
    SusanKSouthwick
    Love this movie! And the book is even better....
  • doctordoom
    July 8, 2009
    doctordoom
    This is a very well done drama about four elderly Chinese women and their American-born daughters. The mothers tell their stories to the daughters about their life and hardships.The film has some very touching moments through out and is well acted. The film has a great cast. I gu...( read more)ess this film is based off a book. I have never read the book but this is a good film to watch. The film is more for a female audience but is still worth checking out for guys who enjoy a well acted film with great stories.
  • exureimundo
    July 4, 2009
    exureimundo
    Very touching story about Chinese women in America in relationship to their Chinese-American daughters. I could see what made Amy Tan so popular in the 90s, although I never read the book, even though my Chinese-American mother recommended it.
  • SheWhoMustNotBeNamed934
    June 28, 2009
    SheWhoMustNotBeNamed934
    ooohhh apparently the book is good
  • psyclock7
    June 23, 2009
    psyclock7
    Interesting...worth watching only once.
  • baberman123
    May 23, 2009
    baberman123
    So emotional hard to watch at times but a beautiful film
  • kalixa1230
    April 28, 2009
    kalixa1230
    Brings me to tears, every time!
  • graveling861
    March 27, 2009
    graveling861
    Some really dark moments but pretty faithful to the book.
  • DreamsofRidingThestrals
    March 19, 2009
    DreamsofRidingThestrals
    This film is amazing because even tho the women telling the stories are of Chinese decent, almost every woman can relate to what these women go thru, during this film. I Highly recommend this film.
  • kokodreamz
    March 3, 2009
    kokodreamz
    I read the book, and thought they should make this into a movie. I was so happy when they did.
  • ernawati765
    February 25, 2009
    ernawati765
    if you want to cry, watch this movie
  • DanielleBlack
    February 20, 2009
    DanielleBlack
    Watched this again recently and was reminded how fabulous this film is.
  • Breanna1127
    February 15, 2009
    Breanna1127
    If you want to cry, watch this movie.
  • Glinda
    January 20, 2009
    Glinda
    Absolutely beautiful.
  • consuela101
    January 16, 2009
    consuela101
    the relationship between my mother and i evolved ten fold after seeing this movie. i finally realized (now after having my own family) just exactly what my mother is talking about.
  • kalh7338
    December 4, 2008
    kalh7338
    I love the history of women told across generations. This was well-told and I still plan on reading the book despite having seen the movie.
  • lavendersessence
    November 24, 2008
    lavendersessence
    Absolutly LOVED IT!!
  • glois1610
    October 29, 2008
    glois1610
    jeje maybe
    we'll see
  • donnarenee2006
    October 25, 2008
    donnarenee2006
    One of my favorite movies. Joy Luck Club is based on the stories of 4 women that have each different tales on their lives in China before coming to America. Wonderful characters and the actresses were amazing.
  • Ingrid85
    October 13, 2008
    Ingrid85
    Moments that truly made me laugh and truly made me cry. 8 stories in 1- one is bound to touch your heart and open your eyes.
  • amysturf
    September 22, 2008
    amysturf
    I love this movie. The story is great. It makes me want to read the book. The point of view relaying the story makes viewers feel like they can relate to the characters.
  • koreis2
    September 20, 2008
    koreis2
    Passionate
    Involving
  • ynotcall2
    September 12, 2008
    ynotcall2
    Have not seem will look for it
  • SweetstheSexyNinja
    September 4, 2008
    SweetstheSexyNinja
    A very good movie, loved it, also very tear-jerking!...lol
  • EarthlyAlien
    August 30, 2008
    EarthlyAlien
    "I tell you the story because I was raised the Chinese way. I was taught to desire nothing, to swallow other people's misery, and to eat my own bitterness. And even though I taught my daughter the opposite, still she came out the same way. Maybe it is because she was born to m...( read more)e and she was born a girl, and I was born to my mother and I was born a girl, all of us like stairs, one step after another, going up, going down, but always going the same way."

    Photobucket

    Wayne Wang's fine adaptation of Amy Tan's best-selling "The Joy Luck Club" had an enormous importance in the breakthrough for films about Asians in America. Beautifully made and acted and emotionally moving in the bargain, this Bergman-esque dramatic study of relationships between Chinese mothers and daughters through the century is still widely accessible to all viewers, although women will certainly comprise the base audience. A surprising entry from Hollywood Pictures, this lovely production hasn't aged a bit, like no film about human beings ever does. Instead, The Joy Luck Club may prove to be the most important Chinese-American film ever made.

    Conventional Hollywood wisdom offered many excuses why Tan's novel, the No. 1 fiction best-seller of 1989, would not make a viable film: it centered on Asian women. The names and faces would be confusing. Too many stories jumping around in time, and much of the dialogue would need to be in Chinese. Quite impressively, however, screenwriters Tan and Ronald Bass and director Wang solved all these potential problems in a very lucid explication of the major tales related in the book. Even more important from a commercial point of view, they've retained, and perhaps even magnified, the universal emotional qualities of the material, making this story of innumerable hardships and sacrifices one that was destined to move and inspire audiences worldwide.

    Joy Luck Club is an "immigrants" picture par excellence. Beautifully put together, the film is an emotionally heart-rending study of generational gap - but also continuity - between Chinese mothers and their American-born daughters. The film probes such universal issues as mothers' expectations for, pressure on, and disappointment in their daughters when they don't surpass them, when they end up being just as victimized or abused as they were in China.

    I couldn't do justice to the richness of the film and book (which I read about a decade ago, in the 6th grade). The exposition, which embraces decades and goes back and forth from past to present, and from one woman to another, is always lucid and riveting. What unifies the episodic structure is a farewell party for June (Ming-Na Wen), one of the daughters, as she is ready to go to China and meet her twin sisters. Their mother was forced to abandon the twin babies during her flight from war-torn China.

    Another touching (and surprisingly funny) episode is when one of June's mahjong-playing aunties, Lindo (Tsai Chin) tells how she was sold into marriage by her mother when she was 15, and how she and her daughter Waverly (Tamlyn Tomita) endured hard years before they finally reached reconciliation. Rose (Rosalind Chao), married to an insensitive, career-oriented white (Andrew McCarthy), reveals the devastating saga of her mother An Mei (Lisa Lu), who was one of many wives to a Chinese lord and sacrificed herself for her daughter.

    As filmed, the entire story is a fabrication that allows each woman to experience an extended flashback that highlights the flashpoint moments in her life. Each mother's flashback merges into her daughter's memories. The boundaries are not always separable and each of the eight stories told here are engrossing and stirring. The gravity of the events that these women experienced in China, the differences and similarities in the lives of these daughters who've grown up in America - none of that pain and suffering is evident from a cursory glance at their lives. Within the film, they scratch past the surface and pierce our sensibilities with marksman-like precision.

    The casting must have been a major challenge, as each of the eight women is beautiful and distinctive. Naturally, the acting is variable, ranging from splendid performances by the veteran actresses (Tsai Chin, Rosalind Chao, France Nuyen and Lisa Lu) to not as great ones by the younger ones (especially Ming Na-Wen). The miracle is that the film just happens to be politically correct. It's not a feminist agenda picture (although some of the men eventually come out as selfish cunts), and though dealing with Asian-American women, it propagates cultural diversity and it's essentially a film most people can relate to.

    Ingmar Bergman, who was also fascinated by women, made some of his best films about them. In its sensibility and style, The Joy Luck Club brings to mind Cries and Whispers and especially Autumn Sonata, a masterful melodrama about the conflict between a pianist mother (Ingrid Bergman) and her bitter, neglected daughter (Liv Ullmann). As in those films, the visual style here is rich, but not sumptuous and overbearing. As befits its intimate scale and psychological nature, most of the film is done through close-ups. It's a visually splendid film, with Amir Mokri's luminous lensing, Donald Graham Burt's production design and Lydia Tanji's costumes fusing into a rich look that is not overly self-conscious. Toward the end, there's one crucial sequence that is shot in an epic style, recalling Bernardo Bertolucci's The Last Emperor. It's the only sequence that uses long shots and that somehow "violates" the otherwise personal nature of the material.

    My only complaint against the film is that it's too long (2 hours and 20 minutes) and that it contains, as does the book, too many stories and too many flashbacks. But at its best moments, The Joy Luck Club provides a rare perspective of a cultural experience that has been missing from Hollywood productions lately. Each of the stories is different, yet the overall emotional tone is coherent and the thematic link clear: most of the women, of both generations, have been victims in one way or another. And finally, there's something here for all history buffs and people with a slight fascination with China. While the film's focus is always intimate, the fascinating political context makes the issues broader, more resonant. Like all great films, Joy Luck Club is at once particular and universal.
  • hlg69
    August 8, 2008
    hlg69
    This movie tells the story of mothers and daughters in a way that will make you weep everytime you watch it. To say that this movie is wonderful, doesn't do it justice.
  • asun23
    August 7, 2008
    asun23
    This movie is spectacular. Yes, it more then likely will make you cry but if you can stay with it till the end you'll be glad you did.
  • ghettoqueen747
    August 2, 2008
    ghettoqueen747
    Love Amy Tan! the book was great and so was the movie!
  • ruth3111
    July 28, 2008
    ruth3111
    Those babies are alive
  • andylou15
    July 7, 2008
    andylou15
    This is a fantastic movie. You learn a lot about another culture and what it is like having to grow up through it.
  • xxGoneWithTheSinxx
    July 6, 2008
    xxGoneWithTheSinxx
    Very emotional story about Chinese/American mothers & daughters. Fantastic film!
  • dredzag
    June 26, 2008
    dredzag
    I recently saw this after a long break and fell in love with it all over again. The casting is perfect. If you haven't had a chance to watch this I encourage you to do so.
  • FireAndLightning
    June 26, 2008
    FireAndLightning
    It was a different way of telling a story. We see 8 Chinese womans stories trough their memories, they tell us what has happened. I didn't think it was an all interesting movie, but I like to know that I've seen it, I thought it showed some China parts from another perspective.
    ...( read more)It had some slow moments, but over all good. I recognized like 5 Chinese people =D ^_^"
  • absolutnormal
    June 26, 2008
    absolutnormal
    I was really surprised how much I liked this movie. It was really well made, awesome cast and story!
  • thmtsang
    June 20, 2008
    thmtsang
    Based on the novel by Amy Tan, about four elderly Chinese women who left China for America and their relationships with their American born daughters. Each relationship is strained because of the hardships that each mother had endured. How come Andrew McCarthy never ages?
  • TheMightyCelestial
    June 19, 2008
    TheMightyCelestial
    I was supposed to take my girlfriend at the time to go see this movie, but she was one of those type of girls that in order to get attention, whenever I would call her to tell her that I was on my way to pick her up, she would always tell me to come right over, but that she could...( read more)n't guarantee that she would still wanta to go out when I arrived, cuz as always 4 her, she was feelin' like she was comin' down with some sort of sickness or somethin'. So, on this day, I had decided that I had had enough, called her on her bluff, & then told her to that we would just skip the whole thing & she can stay home & get better ( what she actually wanted was for me to go "Aww, you poor thing!" & come over & "baby" her *eyes roll*...). So then, I went to go see this movie by myself, just to p#ss her off, not really expecting anything from it.
    However, by the time the movie was over, I could feel that my eyes had actually become substantially watered.
    Right there & then, I knew that my relationship with my girlfriend was over.
    Cuz no one makes me cry my own tears.
    No one.
  • LitelBluHli
    June 1, 2008
    LitelBluHli
    This is a great film that takes you into the lives of these women. Each story is different. I love it!!! Mothers and daughters...watch it together!!!
  • montoyaevans
    May 22, 2008
    montoyaevans
    i am not chinese but this makes me cry

Summary

The Joy Luck Club Summary