Movies - The Joy Luck Club

Home > Listing Index > Movies > The Joy Luck Club

	Movies - The Joy Luck Club

The Joy Luck Club (1989) is a best-selling novel written by Amy Tan. It focuses on four Chinese-American immigrant families who start a club known as "the Joy Luck Club," playing the Chinese game of Mahjong for money while feasting on a variety of foods. There are twelve chapters divided into four sections, and each woman, both mothers and daughters, (with the exception of one mother, Suyuan Woo, who dies before the novel opens) share stories about their lives in the form of vignettes.

As the novel opens Jing-Mei "June" Woo has just lost her mother, Suyuan, to an aneurism. She is asked by her mother's three friends to take Suyuan's place in their Mah-Jong foursome and their 'Joy Luck Club.' The novel unfolds with interspersed chapters by each of the three remaining members of the Club and their American-born daughters. Lindo and Waverly Jong began their war over Waverly's childhood chess stardom and the effects it has on every aspect of Waverly's adult life. An-Mei Hsu recounts the tragedy that gave her strength, and worries that her daughter, Rose, lacks the same determination. Lena St. Clair tries to care for her eccentric mother, while her mother recounts a secret history that has allowed her to see more deeply than her daughter imagines. Through it all, June Woo tries to piece together the stories that her own mother can no longer tell, and to be faithful to her mother's memory despite their sometimes rocky relationship.

In 1993, the novel was made into a feature film directed by Wayne Wang and starring Ming-Na, Lauren Tom, Tamlyn Tomita, France Nuyen, Rosalind Chao, Mei Juan Xi, Kieu Chinh, Tsai Chin, Lisa Lu, and Vivian Wu. The screenplay was written by Amy Tan and Ronald Bass. When the film premiered, there were several protests across the United States by members of the Chinese American communities, due to negative portrayals of traditional Chinese society and Asian males.

Characters of The Joy Luck Club

----

The Mothers:

Suyuan Woo - During the Second Sino-Japanese War, Suyuan lived in the Chinese town of Kweilin while her husband (at the time) served as an officer in Chungking. On the day of the Japanese invasion, Suyuan was forced to leave her house only with a bag of clothes, a bag of food and her two twin daughters. In the long trek, she was forced to abandon both bags, and eventually her daughters as well.

An-mei Hsu - She was the child of a woman who began her life as a first wife, but was reduced to being the fourth wife of a wealthy man when her first husband died. After the death of An-Mei's father, she moved to the house of Wu-Tsing, her mother's new husband. Wu-Tsing impregnated An-Mei's mother, but her child was given to the second wife. An-mei was too young to realize all of this at the time, but her mother became Wu-Tsing's through second wife, who set her up to be raped. In the end, An-mei's mother killed herself, and in turn, strengthened her daughter.

Lindo Jong - Lindo is a woman whose strong will is attributed by her daughter Waverly to having been born in the year of the Horse. When she was only twelve, she was wedded to a neighbor's young son Huang Tyuan Yi. She began to love her husband as a brother, but her cold mother-in-law was greedy for a grandson, and began to restrict Lindo. However, through careful observation of her surroundings, Lindo was cleverly able to escape her marriage unharmed and immigrate to America.

Ying-Ying St. Clair - A spoiled child of a wealthy family, Ying-Ying was seduced by a playboy and bore him a child. However, during her marriage, she was constantly humiliated when her husband openly flirted with women and even brought them home. Utterly powerless and in great despair, she drowned her son, whom her husband loved, and left the family and went to the States to remarry and had a daughter.

The Daughters:

Jing-mei "June" Woo- Jing-mei has never fully understood her mother and seems directionless in life. When she is chosen to replace her mother in the Joy Luck Club, she also is responsible for finishing what her mother had set out to do before she died by meeting with her two half-sisters.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for The Joy Luck Club ]

This page is based on the copyrighted Wikipedia article The Joy Luck Club; it is used under the GNU Free Documentation License. You may redistribute it, verbatim or modified, providing that you comply with the terms of the GFDL.

Searches on eBay