evening1 I found this movie somewhat of a mixed blessing.Henry O is likable as a concerned father visiting his cold-as-a-fish daughter, who has abandoned many of her Chinese traditions and lives a kind of sterile existence in Portland. Mr. Shi apparently worked too much under some harsh Communist conditions; some suspected him of having an affair with a co-worker though it never happened. Still, his late wife held all this against him and his daughter Yilan is still stewing over it.Some of the best scenes in this film depict Mr. Shi and another foreign-born parent, Madam (Vida Ghahremani), struggling to commiserate with each other in English after having met by happenstance on a park bench.As good as those scenes were, I'm not sure the plot and characterizations in this film hold together very well. Toward the end of the film, Mr. Shi gets a little more pointed in his questions of his daughter. He's concerned that she's wasting her time on a married Russian man. Their getting below the surface in their dialogue somehow draws them closer together and in the end Yilan cracks a smile for the first time.I guess we are supposed to see this as a breakthrough. But I found Yilan so unpleasantly monosyllabic that I really stopped caring much about her. It bothered me that Madam, a refreshingly vibrant presence earlier in the movie, gets whisked out of the story near its end. Her friend says she placed her in an assisted-living facility because her son had not wanted her moving in with him.That made no sense to me...She was a sensitive and determined woman and I didn't see how a friend of hers could dispose of her in this fashion.In the end I guess it smacked a bit of stereotyping against elders.I'd heard good things about Wayne Wang's direction but this production was a mixed bag. As a student of Mandarin, though, I greatly enjoyed the beautifully articulated conversations between father and child. The meals Mr. Shi whipped up looked delicious as well!

Seamus2829 The films of Wayne Wang are an acquired taste. His early films,such as 'Eat A Bowl Of Tea','Dim Sum:A Little Bit Of Heart',and his best known film 'The Joy Luck Club' are meditations on the Asian lifestyle in the United States. If your tastes are aimed at explosions,car chases, mindless teen sex romps,bathroom humour,then avoid Wang's films at all costs. If you like a well written screenplay that doesn't dwell on car chases,explosions,toilet humour & all the rest that make for just another descent into the cinematic sewer,then you just may get your groove on with the films of Wayne Wang. Here,a elderly Chinese widower comes to the U.S. to visit his adult daughter (and try to run her life), while adjusting to the American experience (or at least trying to adjust). Toss in an attempted friendship with a widow from Iran,mix in some long hidden family secrets, and we have ourselves the formula for a real human drama. The cast,mainly made up of unknowns,make this slowly paced (but never boring)drama an alternative to the formulaic Hollywood garbage that always seems to be the centre of attention at the local multiplexes. No rating,but outside of the discreet mention of extra marital affairs,nothing to offend here.

kathleen-pangan I saw the preview for A Thousand Years of Good Prayer, which shows a Chinese man talking on a park bench with an Iranian women; both have problems speaking in English but they communicate and talk about their children. I thought it would be a nice heartfelt movie about two immigrants connecting. That was a part of it... but it was a lot more than that.There is indeed a Chinese man; he is an old rocket scientist and is visiting his 30-some year old daughter in the U.S.; the problem is that they don't talk... almost at all. The setting is a pretty dull-looking suburban apartment complex, and the only thing to do is to go to a nearby park with some ducks. I had a feeling of depression throughout the whole movie. There isn't really anything momentously bad that happens in the movie; maybe it's that nothing huge happens at all and people are just not happy. It was very non-uplifting, especially as there is no clear resolution by the end. There are a couple funny parts, and some of it is pretty charming as it is a reflection of real life. However, I was expecting a very cute and fun feel-good movie, and it wasn't. It was a snippet of time in this family's life, about some pretty severe communication gaps and how difficult it is to heal a whole lifetime of lack of intimacy and hurt. Some wounds don't heal overnight, and some lessons can't be learned in a short period of time. The film has sincerely stellar acting, and it is serious in a very real way. I can't say I enjoyed the film and maybe it's because it hit too close to home, but I can say it was very good.

rrfrank This movie felt like it lasted over 1,000 years. A really bad soap opera masquerading as a meaningful family "drama" exploring generational and cultural barriers. There is not one genuine moment in its bloated running length. An anamorphic screen image can't disguise what an amateurish production this is – the acting is especially laughable. Story in a nutshell: elderly Chinese man comes to The States to visit his daughter. The father is hoping (and pushing) to become a grandfather. Pathos and a lot of moping ensue. Yawn. The void between father & daughter is played out in interminable dinner scenes. The only thing more boring are the excruciating park bench pidgin English dialogue scenes between the father and an Iranian woman he befriends. Daughter's Russian boyfriend is a cardboard cutout of a joke – like everyone in this epic. And oh yeah, the most unintentionally hilarious line of the movie, "You were never a rocket scientist."