A Thousand Years of Good Prayers – An insightful and touching film

A Thousand Years of Good Prayers is a little known but wonderfully made film (another DVD I discovered from the Calgary Public Library). It was made by the Chinese American director Wayne Wang (best known for his The Joy Luck Club).

Here is a synopsis of the film (reworking from the back cover info),

A woman in her early 40s moved from China more than 10 years ago to America to start a new life. Her father comes to visit her because of her recent divorce. Their social and generational conflicts end up revealing the darker lies and cover-ups within her family during the Cultural Revolution.

A Thousand Years of Good Prayers is a based on a short story by YiYun Li. According to Guardian, “Yiyun Li’s 2005 debut story collection A Thousand Years of Good Prayers earned her comparisons with Chekhov and Alice Munro.”

This reporter really admire Wayne Wang for trying to telling American Chinese stories that can be universally appealing to everyone who cares to pay attention. Henry O plays the father in the film and his own story as he tells us in the DVD bonus section was deeply insightful and shows how he himself survived the Cultural Revolution in his own way. The interview with YiYun Li is a lot of fun to watch as well.