Watching Wayne Wang's adaptation of Amy Tan's novel The Joy Luck Club brought back a lot of feelings. There have been a lot of Asian-led narratives in recent years, some of which focused on the cultural clashes between generations and the dysfunctional relationships between mother and daughter, but The Joy Luck Club is considered the quintessential Chinese-American film.

However, it was not the first film to feature predominantly Asian-American actors in a contemporary Asian-American narrative; the 1961 multiple-Academy Award nominee Flower Drum Song was the first feature to break these boundaries. Regardless, the 1993 film adaptation of The Joy Luck Club was considered a significant gamble in Hollywood due to the lack of well-known Asian actors in America that were cast in the film.

Set in San Francisco, a key city among Chinese immigrants in North America, The Joy Luck Club paints a modern picture of Asian-American life; the children speak English and the elders speak Mandarin and are treated with respect as the children obediently tend to them. Except for a brief interaction between one of the characters and her boyfriend's snobbish mother, Wang and screenwriters Tan and Ronald Bass ensure that their characters are not mocked or stereotyped. Small cultural elements of Chinese life are celebrated in celluloid, whether it is family dinners, mothers engaged in ardent conversations or even post-dinner orange slices. But the one which struck a personal chord is the significance of mahjong—a game that I remember my mother playing throughout the night and one she has taught me and my brothers to play over the last 20 years to form a long-standing Christmas family tradition.

Seeing June play with her mother's friends evoked past memories of learning how to play mahjong with relatives. The rules of gameplay are passed down to younger generations, providing an effective bridge where conversations may fail between parents and children. The theme of strained communication between mother and daughter is a constant theme in The Joy Luck Club that reinforces a personal sense of melancholy rarely seen in cinema, even 30 years since its initial release.

"Our mothers' weapons of choice were comparing their children"

When we were young, the worst thing you could do as a child was disappoint your parents. Whilst receiving the praise of a picky parent could raise you up, the bubble could also burst just as quickly with a disapproving look and a harsh word. My own mother had high hopes for my future as I had an interest in languages, hoping to see me as a multilingual high-flyer or a teacher in an international school, solely due to my fluency in comprehensible English. But when I didn’t want to follow the profession she wanted, her disappointment was palpable.

I therefore resonated with how the competitiveness between June and Waverly provides ammunition for their respective mothers in the classic game of "here's how I am better than you". The rivalry also serves as a barometer of their mothers' success as a Chinese immigrant, showing that their choice to leave China for a life in America was worth the hardships they endured. But with both girls, their 'success' ends abruptly, so the pressure to do well is now replaced with the guilt of 'failing' their parents.

This leaves the daughters with an inner dilemma - they either become a weapon for their mother to use and boast about (with no word of praise or pride) or become an object of embarrassment. Either way, their achievements do not feel like their own or lead to a natural sense of happiness, nor enable self-confidence that can be carried into either their professional or personal lives.

Exploring the lives of each daughter, most of them find themselves in serious relationships that either result in humiliation or sadness, but the biggest takeaway is a lack of personal independence among them, indicating that they do not take the time to establish their own emotional barometer before settling down with someone. Instead, they are in a rush to ‘settle down,’ to perhaps get their mothers off their back, but by doing so they fall into relationships they later come to regret, as well as being saddled with an inability to truly express themselves.

“How can a daughter not know her own mother?”

The flashbacks throughout The Joy Luck Club highlight the traditional expectations of women in China—they are expected to be obedient towards their parents and later, their partners. However, the painful memories of each character show that filial piety can only go so far, resulting in the subsequent sacrifices that the mothers, including the late Suyuan, were forced to make in order to survive. Needless to say, the extent of their trauma is hard to express, so they naturally stay quiet to 'bury' the pain. 

The mothers' respective inner struggles to overcome their demons manifest via a reluctance to be honest, especially with their daughters. The elders stay quiet to avoid placing the burden on their childrens' shoulders, while their daughters construe their silence as disappointment. This lack of communication forms a brewing pot of resentment and bitterness, stifling the relationship between mother and daughter, despite that in reality, honesty is the key to mutual understanding. It is the breaking of these boundaries which enables the two generations to stand on common ground, and the formerly grey area between them becomes black and white.

Upon its release in 1993, The Joy Luck Club was praised for its depiction of Asian-Americans, and how it resonates with Chinese-American audiences. The film has become a cult classic, reminding film fans of the time a studio feature dared to break boundaries despite Hollywood’s notorious aversion to diversity in the early 1990s. But since its release, the industry has recognised the potential and appeal of Asian-led narratives, resulting in not only a string of successful films in recent years but also a reported sequel for The Joy Luck Club produced by Ronald Bass. There is no denying the legacy of Wayne Wang’s tearjerker, which is now widely considered the OG Chinese-American film. The Joy Luck Club laid the path so that films such as Crazy Rich Asians, Everything Everywhere All at Once, Shang-Chi and the Ten Rings and Joy Ride could run.