This is Ang Lee's first feature film and part one of what later came to be
called his "Father Knows Best" trilogy. All three films focus on the
relationship between a Chinese father and his more modernized or Americanized
children. The other two are The Wedding Banquet (1993) and the brilliant
Eat Drink Man Woman (1994). The first two take place in America while the
last film is set in Taiwan. To some degree this reflects Ang Lee and his
multi-cultural background. Brought up in Taiwan by parents who escaped China
after the Communists took over, Lee found himself more interested in the
arts than in becoming a professor as his parents wanted. After serving in
the army as is required he came to America to study - first at the University
of Illinois and then at New York University. He also got married to a micro-biologist
and then for six years he became what he described as a house-husband as
he took care of their son. But he wrote scripts and sent in both this one
and the one for The Wedding Banquet to a Taiwanese competition. They won
first and second prize and enough interest was generated for Lee to get an
offer to direct Pushing Hands. The title comes from a form of Tai-chi that
Lee had been practicing for a few years. Long before Crouching Tiger, Hidden
Dragon.
The film is shot on a shoestring budget and some of the dialogue and a couple
scenes feel awkward at times but it is a heartfelt story that delves into
a few issues - finding meaning as you get older, finding your place in a
new land, the uneasy relationship between a traditional Chinese father and
his Americanized son who has married a white woman and a past marred by the
Cultural Revolution and the Red Guard. It is slow and calm made of everyday
things and every day irritations. Mr. Chu has been allowed to leave China
and come live with his son in the suburbs in New Jersey. A fish very much
out of water floundering about with little to do beyond his daily routine
of Tai-chi, calligraphy and watching Chinese tapes on TV. He complains about
how unreal the kung fu films are. He drives the wife nuts with his Chinese
Opera and presence. That effects the marriage and the son is on the verge
of asking the father to leave though it rips him up inside to do so. But
the father beats them to the punch and leaves on his own to live in Chinatown.
Back in China Mr. Chu had been an instructor in Tai-chi. This comes in handy
when he gets a job washing dishes and the owner tries to fire him for being
too slow. He tells the owner if you can move me one step I will leave. He
can't. So he gets the other workers to try. They can't. He brings in a gang
to try. They can't. Finally the police come in. They can't. It makes him
a hero in Chinatown which is where he finds happiness - in the streets smelling
of Chinese food, where a litany of different Chinese dialects are heard,
the mahjong parlor, instructing others in his art. As far away from America
in America as he can get. At 70 years old there is not going to be any attempt
at acculturation.
Mr. Chu is played by Sihung Lung, a film star in Taiwan - apparently often
as the bad guy - he had been in Chiang Kai-shek's army - who came out of
retirement for this film. It revitalized his career as he went on to act
in Lee's next two films and then had a part in Crouching Tiger. He acted
till he passed away in 2002. In the film he has a flirtation with another
Chinese immigrant who had lived in Beijing but had left for Taiwan. Now in
America with her daughter. She is played by the great often very stern Wang
Lai, who if you have watched many Hong Kong films you will likely have crossed
paths with her as she was in nearly 300 films stretching back to the early
1950's. It made me happy seeing her in this.
