At the beginning of the film, Amy Tan wrote this female monologue from a first-person perspective:
In America, I'm going to have a daughter like me, but there she won't have to live off her husband's breath; there, no one will discriminate against her because I'll make her speak fluent American. She will, always carefree.
In this deep prayer, the theme of the film gradually becomes clear.
In the film, four Chinese women with ill-fated lives came out of their misery and finally overcame all difficulties and went to the United States on the eve of liberation. In a foreign country, they miss their homeland while accompanying their daughters in the birth and growth.
On the one hand, mothers hope that their daughters will integrate into the local life in the United States and not repeat their own mistakes; on the other hand, the deep-rooted traditional Chinese ideas in their bodies seem to be incompatible with completely Westernized daughters.
As a result, the conflict between China's all-encompassing maternal love and the atmosphere of liberalized growth in the United States began to escalate.
China's all-encompassing maternal love vs. America's liberalized growth
Among the many veteran actors, Feihong Yu was the only young girl who flew to the United States from China. She was just a junior that year.
On the screen, Yingying, played by Yu Feihong, is pure and flawless. She was educated to be a lady from a young age, but when she was 16 years old, she married the playboy Fengzi and gave birth to a boy.
However, her rambunctious husband has since become her nightmare, from staying home at night to openly bringing home his mistress, and even taking pleasure in abusing others.
After experiencing a series of mental bullying by her husband, Yingying, who was unable to resist, finally drowned her own child. Full of guilt and powerless, Yingying believes that her soul has passed away with her dead child, so she has no good soul to give to her later daughter.
Few people can imagine that such a character full of bleak eyes is actually played by a junior girl.
In addition to Yu Feihong, the film also gathers veteran actors such as Wu Junmei, Zhou Caiqin, and Lu Yan. In the interlude, they use delicate expressions to express the sad past of four Chinese mothers and daughters.
Before heading to the United States, these four women all lived in China in the first half of the 20th century. Facing the deep-rooted old feudal forces and pedantic local customs, they did not act as blind and docile lambs in the face of fate, but waited for the opportunity. Mature, rise up and resist .
The four of them, originally the wives of Kuomintang officers, were separated from their husbands by the Japanese gunfire and were forced to abandon their twin daughters, Wu Suyun.
Gong Linda, who was married by the baby at birth, found out that her husband could not bear children after marriage, so she pretended to be crazy and fled, and finally made her own money and came to the United States.
Born into the richest family in the south of the Yangtze River, Gu Yingying encountered her husband's infidelity.
And Xu Anmei, who lives in the shadow of her mother who was deceived and swallowed up as the fourth concubine.
When they escaped their ill-fated lives and entered the United States in their own ways, they no longer wanted their daughters to repeat their own tragedies.
Those beautiful life wishes that cannot be achieved in their own life are all placed on their daughters, for fear that a little bit of bad luck will shroud her head.
Against such a background of growth, in the United States, they either forced their daughters to learn the piano or forced their daughters to learn chess, in order to insinuate their unyielding determination to their fate on their daughters and make them independent powerhouses. , to make up for the psychological trauma they have suffered.
One of the mothers said: " There are only two kinds of daughters in this world, submissive and free, and in our family, only submissive daughters are allowed to exist. "
Just like the education methods of most traditional Chinese women, the expression of maternal love in the film is often realized through severe admonitions and reprimands. The four mothers are extremely nervous about their daughter's study, courtship, and marriage, and are very nervous about their daughter's home, diet, and work. are extremely picky.
But all of this is unbearable in the eyes of the new generation of children, and excessive care or protection is a kind of "control" in their eyes.
In this way, the conflict between mother and daughter began to emerge.
"No matter what I do, I won't get your favor"
When the four mothers in the movie did their best to protect their daughters from suffering in their own way, the daughters could not understand mothers who grew up in different cultural backgrounds . Under constant pressure, the daughters began to try various various struggles.
The girl Wei Li is a talented girl in Go. After winning the championship, she appeared on the cover of the magazine. Mother Lindo took her and the magazine to show off to everyone passing by in Chinatown.
The sensitive girl was once embarrassed by her mother's behavior. "If you like to show off so much, why don't you play chess yourself?" Lin Duo was also puzzled by this, " Is this mother, do you feel ashamed? "
With nothing to do, Willie decides to stop playing chess on purpose. But a few days later, when Wei Li expressed her compromise and wanted to play chess again, her mother said coldly with disappointment and sadness, " Do you think this is easy? You can play it if you want, and forget it if you don't want to. It would be that simple. ”
Since then, this incident has been like a spell. Having lost her mother's affirmation and courage, she has lost her self-confidence little by little, and she will always live in a state of incomprehension of herself.
" Why do I never get my mother's favor? ".
While Wei Li was desperately trying to get rid of her mother's control, she also desperately hoped to gain her mother's approval. This entanglement was not resolved until she divorced and remarried.
For most of the film, there are communication gaps like this between mothers and daughters. Mothers can't understand why they need to call to make an appointment to visit their daughters; Why daughter's and husband's bill entries are so clearly separated...
Like no one can explain to the four daughters:
The mother never used the pot she gave her, not because she didn't like it, but because she couldn't bear it.
Mothers never hug and kiss themselves, not because of indifference to their children, but pour their love into the dumplings and crabs they unswervingly serve to their daughters.
The mother constantly intervenes in her mate choice, but she is actually worried that her daughter will be hurt in marriage...
But for four daughters who grew up in the United States but were always caught between two cultures, the fate they faced was equally embarrassing.
On the one hand, they are very resistant to the sustenance placed on them by their mother, but they inevitably suffer from the subtle influence of their mother.
At home, they will never be able to truly understand their mother's various concepts and practices, and they will never be able to hear or discern the deep meaning of their mother's Chinese words, and they will never be able to endure her mother's pervasive and ubiquitous maternal love .
In society, they are unable to change their "Oriental" image in the eyes of white people, and have always been excluded from mainstream American culture.
Although mothers have tried their best to hope that their daughters can be happy, but things backfired, and the unfortunate fate of mothers keeps repeating themselves on their daughters: the failure of marriage, the failure of work, the confusion of life...
" We are like going up the stairs, step by step, up or down, repeating the same fate forever. " In this way, the four daughters are struggling to find their own identities in a cultural conflict and blending.
In two hours of video, "The Joy Luck Club" with its complex storyline wants to say more than that.
At the end of the film, mothers who have all escaped their unfortunate fates on their own, gradually realize the harm their expectations have brought to their daughters, and try to open up to their daughters and help them rediscover themselves.
When the four daughters understand their mothers in their own way and try to reconcile with their pasts and misunderstood mothers, the restoration of the mother-daughter relationship also gives them the necessary spiritual strength on the road of female self-growth.
For some, the film tells the story of the psychological estrangement, cultural conflict, and kinship between the first-generation American immigrants and the second-generation immigrants who grew up in the United States.
But the topic of blood and family love is the eternal theme of human beings.
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