Movie Review: The Joy Luck Club (1993)

The Joy Luck Club is a 1989 novel by Amy Tan about four Chinese immigrant families in San Francisco who form a mahjong group called the Joy Luck Club. The story is arranged like a mahjong game, with four parts and sixteen interconnected chapters.

The novel is often discussed for its portrayal of Chinese immigrant mothers and their American-born daughters, particularly the tensions around language, culture, and generational identity. In 1993, it was adapted into a feature film directed by Wayne Wang, with a screenplay by Amy Tan and Ronald Bass. The story was later adapted for the stage by Susan Kim, premiering at the Pan Asian Repertory Theatre in New York.

Main Cast:
Kieu Chinh - Suyuan (mother)
Tsai Chin - Lindo (mother)
France Nuyen - Ying-Ying (mother)
Lisa Lu - An-Mei (mother)
Ming-Na Wen- June (Suyuan's daughter)
Tamlyn Tomita - Waverly (Lindo's daughter)
Lauren Tom - Lena (Ying-Ying's daughter)
Rosalind Chao - Rose (An-Mei's daughter)

Synopsis

The film is set in San Francisco and follows June Woo, who is asked to take her late mother’s place in The Joy Luck Club, a mahjong group formed by four Chinese immigrant women. June believes her mother, Suyuan Woo, was never satisfied with her and feels disconnected from her mother’s past. She later discovers that she has twin half-sisters living in China, and traveling to meet them becomes a way to complete what her mother left unfinished.

June’s journey is interwoven with the stories of the other club members and their daughters. Through flashbacks, the film revisits the women’s lives in China and the experiences that shaped their choices, marriages, and expectations. As mothers and daughters confront memories long left unspoken, they begin to understand the emotional distance between them.

Lindo escapes an arranged marriage as a teenager and later builds a new life in America. Her daughter Waverly becomes a chess prodigy but quits after clashing with her mother. As an adult, Waverly plans to marry her Caucasian fiancé, Rich, prompting tension with Lindo that is eventually resolved.

Ying-Ying endures abandonment and deep trauma in China, including the loss of her infant son. In America, she becomes withdrawn, leaving her daughter Lena unsettled and insecure. Ying-Ying later helps Lena confront the imbalance in her marriage and recognize her own dissatisfaction.

An-Mei grows up believing her mother disgraced the family by becoming a concubine. She later learns the truth behind her mother’s sacrifice, including her suicide to secure her children’s future. In America, An-Mei urges her daughter Rose to stand up for herself after Rose’s marriage begins to fall apart.

Suyuan escapes wartime China but is forced to abandon her twin daughters during her flight. After starting over in America, she places high expectations on June, which June struggles to meet. Before her death, Suyuan gives June a jade necklace as a quiet affirmation of her worth. June later learns that her twin sisters are alive, travels to China, and finally reconciles her mother’s past with her own identity.

My Take: a missing plot twist that makes it tragic

While the film speaks clearly about generational differences, heritage, and culture, it touched something more personal for me. At its core, the movie shows the sacrifices of mothers – and grandmothers – sacrifices that are immeasurable and, at times, extreme. These women break laws, defy tradition, and cross cultural and social boundaries, all in the hope of creating a better future for the next generation.

The film resonated with me for several reasons. The first is the mahjong scene, a pivotal element in the story. The game exemplified not only the bond among the mothers, but also a re-enactment of the risks they once took in their youth to assert themselves.

On my mother’s side, mahjong is familiar. I have Chinese lineage through my maternal grandmother, who was part Chinese Spanish and part Filipino. When my grandmother passed away, some relatives – men and women—set up a dedicated table to play mahjong during the wake. Curious, I sat beside one of the players, a Chinese Filipino sister in-law (of my grandmother), and watched. I was fascinated by the way they shuffled the tiles, the frantic clatter of plastic blocks cutting through the stillness of grief. I watched them line up the tiles like small fortresses, then reach into the chaotic pile at the center, using only their fingertips to feel the patterns, deciding whether a tile was worth keeping before returning it face down. How intuitive!

A few moments later, the woman shooed me away, saying mahjong was not for children. Perhaps she believed my presence would bring her bad luck. I hated her then – for the dismissal, for the humiliation. But that, I realize now, was amongst the critical points tackled in the movie – belief in luck, and the desire to control it, can be unkind to those who do not yet understand how seriously it is taken.

The second reason the film felt personal is the disconnect between mothers and daughters – or more broadly, between parents and children. “Mothers know best” may sound like a cliché, but it persists because many mothers see through people and situations long before their children do. When The Joy Luck Club mothers appear disapproving or intrusive about their daughters’ partners, it is clear they recognize warning signs early on: a man whose cultural arrogance hides behind humor; a husband who gaslights his wife while treating marriage like a shared lease; a man who conditions fidelity on his wife’s ability to assert herself, without noticing that she has already lost herself trying to meet expectations. That performance, too, is rooted in insecurity – especially for someone raised in a migrant family, struggling to belong.

When the daughters finally seem to come to their senses after conversations with their mothers, I am not convinced they have truly reclaimed their own voices. What they appear to recover is their mothers’ approval, along with their mothers’ defiance of the traditions that once constrained them.

The daughters still do not resolve their situations independently. This raises an uncomfortable question: are women forever bound by expectations imposed by others – partners, families, even those who love them?

I think of my own mother, whom I believe was the most beautiful woman in the world. She could have been many things – a model, a socialite, an artist—had she been allowed to choose freely, guided only by happiness and fulfillment. But she died heartbroken and impoverished.

She married my father young, during a time of strong machismo in the Philippines, and came from an upper-class family bound by rigid traditions. Her life followed a path shaped by others. I know she struggled with it; she wrote her feelings in journals I read after she died. Yet expected to be dutiful and gentle, to embody a softened version of femininity, she silenced herself and performed the role assigned to her. I do not know if she was ever happy. As children, even when we care, we rarely ask our mothers what they truly want. What are their private dreams? To dance ballet? To sing in the rain? To play the piano? To live differently? Too often, children also confine their mothers to the role of nurturer and domestic laborer, expecting them to postpone their dreams indefinitely.

The Joy Luck Club may teach lessons about knowing one’s worth …

But it stops short of showing how one might assert that worth independently. The characters’ moments of triumph remain tied to external approval and circumstance. No one openly identifies their dreams. No one defines their value in their own words.

June defies her mother by refusing to play the piano yet later complies with her mother’s unfulfilled wish by traveling to China. Waverly quits chess to spite Lindo, whose pride fed on her daughter’s success. Lena leaves her husband only after her mother points out the imbalance. Rose stands up to Ted over their house, implying growth, yet eventually reconciles with him – despite his infidelity. Even with Rose’s outburst in these lines, “You’re not taking my house, you’re not taking my daughter, you’re not taking any part of me, because you don’t know who I am. I died sixty years ago. I ate opium and I died for my daughter’s sake. Now get out of my house!”, I was not convinced that Rose was defending her own lived struggle. Even at the height of her rage, her argument was still hinged on her grandmother’s past battle, suggesting that her sense of self had not been established.

I enjoyed the movie tremendously, but the characters failed to reach the point where they gained “liberation” and autonomy. Nowhere do the daughters or the mothers articulate what they personally desire – and although Lena mentioned about her wanting for “respect” and “tenderness” from her husband. But I was expecting something more profound, more specific, more selfish…and not the bare minimum; or what worth means to them beyond reaction and defiance. That “missing” plot twist, for me, is what makes the film tragic.

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