A Thousand Years of Good Prayers

Wayne Wang's A Thousand Years of Good Prayers is a small drama centering on the generational and cultural divide between a father and daughter, underscored during an uncomfortable family reunion. Yilan (Feihong Yu) is a 40-year-old, recently divorced Chinese woman living in Spokane, WA, so thoroughly Americanized she no longer thinks of Chinese as her first language. When her widower father, Mr. Shi (Henry O), a retired rocket scientist, arrives from China, his paternal support carries cultural expectations and judgments that only create a distance between father and daughter. Wang shoots the film with a spare style and dispassionate eye, turning Yilan's tidy little home into an almost anonymous space, while playing down the melodrama to observe the awkward relationship at the center. Of course, both father and daughter eventually learn more about one another (including the silent suffering that Yilan's father and grandfather endured under the vindictive Communist leadership). An intelligent, if not always dramatically involving, film about cultural (mis)understanding and generational distance, this is recommended. (S. Axmaker)