I haven't seen Wayne Wang's other work, but I was not impressed by this particular movie. I absolutely loved the novel. I was amazed at how much Wang was willing to depart from the novel, whether for brevity or plot. In the first scene, when they are playing mah jong, June says something like "no speaking Chinese, thats not fair!" In the novel all the daughters speak Chinese. I'm not one to quibble about book-film inconsistencies but in a movie so concerned with identity and relationships across generations and cultures, this makes no sense to me. And the score was an easy-listening abortion. I'd just like to see their reasons behind some of the decisions they made in adapting this movie. I finished the book attached to all the main characters, while the only character in the movie that I found compelling in the slightest was Lindo Jong.
Review of The Joy Luck Club
