Review: Pom Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold

Reviews

A Thousand Years of Good Prayers

A slight but sometimes affecting trifle

By PETER KEOUGH | October 15, 2008

2.5 Stars

The relationship between fathers and daughters is complicated enough without being further strained by Mao’s Cultural Revolution. In Wayne Wang’s slight but sometimes affecting trifle, however, family politics trump those of the Revolution. Mr. Shi (Henry O), just off the plane from China, observes the banalities of American suburbia with childlike wonder, taking notes on new words as if he were Roberto Benigni in Down by Law. He’s not so charmed by the plight of his deeply unhappy daughter, Yilan (Yu Feihong; in a WASP version the role would be played by Laura Linney), long repatriated in the United States and a spinsterish academic. Why doesn’t she eat more? Why doesn’t she get married? The reasons lie in the past but have nothing to do with history, and they provide less enjoyment than such simple moments as Mr. Shi chatting with a bikini-clad unemployed morgue assistant and communicating with an Iranian woman with less English than himself. Mandarin + English | 86 minutes | Kendall Square

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Topics: Reviews , Communism, Laura Linney, Roberto Benigni, More

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ARTICLES BY PETER KEOUGH

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Whatever your opinion of the policies of Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel, you can't deny that his brother Yoni was a hero, a courageous man whose conflicts and triumphs mirror those of his homeland.

REVIEW: MOONRISE KINGDOM | May 31, 2012
Wes Anderson should always make movies featuring characters who are pubescent or younger — like Rushmore , which until this film was his best.

REVIEW: WHERE DO WE GO NOW? | May 22, 2012
Lebanese director Nadine Labaki's whimsical film about internecine slaughter has a tone problem from the very start: a group of widows engage in a goofy line dance while the voiceover narrator bewails the death toll of religious warfare.

REVIEW: MEN IN BLACK 3 | May 24, 2012
Griffin (Michael Stuhlbarg), a fifth dimensional alien, can see the infinite possibilities each moment possesses and the infinite contingencies that caused it to happen.