Long Life, Happiness & Prosperity

While criticized by the one viewer over the film's perceived cultural inaccuracies, I found this film to be delightful and touching. The setting is an Asian enclave in a Northwest Canadian coastal city where a 12 year old girl, lives with her mom who struggles to make ends meet (Dad abandoned them both a long time before)and never takes time for her own needs. In the same community is a man who owns a barbecue store which he intends to have his 20 year old son take over (but the son has other ideas), and a security guard who, with his lovely wife, is adjusting to the departure of their last child from the home.

The girl begins an intense study of Chinese magic in an attempt to help her mother win the lottery and a husband. Her amateurish application of magic, which, in a touch of magical realism seems to actually work (think Gabriel Garcia Marquez meets Ang Lee), but not as originally intended. As things get worse, the girl, literally playing with fire, tries one magic weapon she had not dared to use before.

The beauty of this film is in the human story which has an Asian flavor, accurate or not, but which could have been set in the deep south (think "the heart is a lonely hunter"), Brooklyn, or anywhere there are single mothers struggling to raise children and children beginning to have dreams for their lives. Of course I don't believe in magic, Chinese or otherwise, but is is a wonderful vehicle that makes the story move forward on everyman's (and every-girl's) journey to Long Life, Happiness & Prosperity.

This movie is quite charming and humourous. The Chinese Canadian characters are incredibly superstitious to the point of being a bit over the top. I wonder if they are like that in real life, or whether it wasn't deliberately exagerrated. I live with many Chinese, but feel I don't understand them.

There was a family in the film that spanned three generations. The father was anticipating a visit from the grandfather and was pushing his own son to be up to snuff. The son rebels by becoming a Bhuddhist monk and the grandfather writes that he disowned the son 20 years ago. However it wasn't clear to me why there was a split between first and second generations in the first place.

If you are interested in cross-cultural issues, this is a good movie to go to.

A sweet but slight portrait of Chinese-Canadian community outside Vancouver, Long Life, Happiness and Prosperity benefits from two wonderful leads — Sandra Oh and Valerie Tian – but comes out a bit short everywhere else. Oh (who is really Korean-Canadian, but who's counting) plays the harried single mother of Mindy (Tian), an adorably geeky twelve year-old. Mindy is desperate to fix her mom up with an eligible bachelor (Russell Yuen) who works with her at a Chinese restaurant, and turns to Chinese traditional medicine and Taoist magic. In the meantime, other members of the community struggle with family strife, economic hardship, and conflicting values. Only the romantic mother-daughter story, and a story about a son who turns to religion rather than working in the family butcher shop, are really interesting. The rest is kind of a muddle — interesting in its way, but failing to contribute to the plot.

Because of Sandra Oh's recent high-profile appearances in Sideways and Grey's Anatomy this might get improved distribution on DVD. I got it through the filmmovement.com series.

This movie is made by a Canadian Chinese director who does not understand Chinese culture. She does not even speak the language. Now, how many chinese people who speak perfect English would work in a chinese restaurant as portrayed in the movie? Many things are exaggerated about the chinese culture and unfortunately, it creates new stereotypes unheard of before. Immigrant families will not make the 2nd generation continue in the same 'profession' - as what the BBQ store guy tried to do in the movie.

People may find this movie sweet with the cute little girl running around trying to create a witch's brew with ideas created for this movie only. Non of this exists in chinese cultural supersticion.

And what's up with the Sandra Oh girl? She is being used for the 2nd time in Mina shum's movies, they must be best friends... using a Korean to portray a Chinese is nuts.

In summary, if you are someone from a chinese culture and understands it clearly, you will be scratching your head after watching this movie. Otherwise, those viewing from the outside will get a chuckle and will wonder more if this is actually what's going on inside a chinese family.

Thank the Taoist gods that twelve-year-old Mindy Lum(Valerie Tian) is a sweet, quiet girl who uses her magic powers for winning lottery ticket- numbers and matchmaking. Just look at the damage Mindy inadvertently creates for Shuck(Chang Tseng) with her mirrors and Chinese juju. The bad spirits that ricochet off mom, alights on this twilight security guard, whose sudden termination from his job leads him on a downward spiral that proves to be almost fatal. Mindy and her single mother Kin Ho(Sandra Oh) belong to a different narrative from Shuck's, but they dovetail, as does the other two parallel stories from time-to-time, like how you bump into people who live in your neighborhood. Sometimes you exchange waves, sometimes you stop to chat. In the remaining story that completes the triad of Canadian-Chinese narratives is an upstart monk who Mindy never meets. "Long Life, Happiness & Prosperity" approaches religion from a position of being faith-based(Peter, the son of a cook, feels but never truly experiences...), and a position from which religion has an actual effect on the physical world(...what Mindy experiences, who changes the fortunes of her Canadian neighbors by reading a book on Taoist magic).

"Long Life, Happiness & Prosperity" rests on the young shoulders of first-time actress Valerie Tian, who has an ancient Chinese secret to acting, which is helpful to any pre-pubescent actor, regardless of ethnicity, to survive the here today, gone tomorrow world of thespians-too-young-to-drive. Don't smile. In other words, if cute is your aim, your five minutes will be up pretty fast. Tian acts older than she looks. She is from the anti-Cindy Brady school of acting, and the now-eighteen-year-old(old-enough-to-drive) Canadian is, not surprisingly, still working. She's Su-Chin in "Juno". You know, the lone anti-abortionist who chants, "All babies want to get borned!"