This is a marvellous little film about the experience of migration, and the difficulties in adjusting to a totally different culture and language.
Four members of the Chan family (the aging parents and the two youngest sons) in Hong Kong decide to follow Bing Chan, the second eldest daughter to Australia to find security before Hong Kong reverts to China in 1997.
But Bing has bought a house in a sterile new housing development on the edge of the Sydney, with plenty of space but none of the social buzz that the family was used to in Hong Kong. Though they try to maintain their Chinese traditions, the new country does not feel right to the parents, and tensions rise as Bing tries to force them to adjust. Meanwhile, the eldest sister Yen is living in Germany with a German husband and a child, and the eldest son has stayed behind in Hong Kong with a busy sexual life.
The film's mood switches from comic to poignant to hopeful to resigned, as the parents try to keep the family together. It's a revealing look at the complexity of migration and the millions of such stories being played out in Australia today that Australian-born residents have little inkling of.
Four members of the Chan family (the aging parents and the two youngest sons) in Hong Kong decide to follow Bing Chan, the second eldest daughter to Australia to find security before Hong Kong reverts to China in 1997.
But Bing has bought a house in a sterile new housing development on the edge of the Sydney, with plenty of space but none of the social buzz that the family was used to in Hong Kong. Though they try to maintain their Chinese traditions, the new country does not feel right to the parents, and tensions rise as Bing tries to force them to adjust. Meanwhile, the eldest sister Yen is living in Germany with a German husband and a child, and the eldest son has stayed behind in Hong Kong with a busy sexual life.
The film's mood switches from comic to poignant to hopeful to resigned, as the parents try to keep the family together. It's a revealing look at the complexity of migration and the millions of such stories being played out in Australia today that Australian-born residents have little inkling of.