On Criterion, I watched Full Moon in New York, a 1989 drama directed by Stanley Kwan (Center Stage), written by Kang-Chien Chiu and Acheng Zhong, and starring Maggie Cheung, Sylvia Chang, and Siqin Gaowa as three immigrants living in New York City. I really liked it a lot, it was a rich drama centering on three women from Hong Kong, Taiwan, and mainland China all coming to Manhattan and trying to make it in their lives, and while they initially seem all different, they do connect and become close friends through their struggles.
Lee Fung-jiau (Cheung) is from Hong Kong, and is the manager and owner of an upscale Chinese restaurant that caters to Americans (including removing the heads of ducks prior to bringing out the dishes to patrons), and has found financial security with the restaurant, owning property, and the stock market, but is a closeted lesbian, and her mother keeps trying to set her up with men for an arranged marriage. She struggles with keeping her real sexuality hidden and presenting an outward appearance of success, avoiding her former lesbian partner and shunning her out of insecurity.
Wang Hsiung-ping (Chang) was an actress in Taiwan, but struggles to find her place in the city. After a relationship with a white American man doesn't work out, she lives with a male friend for awhile, and endures biased opinions from theater directors, and defends herself when a white male director asks why she thinks she, as a Chinese woman, can play Lady Macbeth. She uses an ancestral wife of an Emperor as a fitting example of the history and culture she carries within herself to play any classical theater role.
Zhaohong (Gaowa), from mainland China, was a teenage girl when her father died during the Cultural Revolution in 1960s China, and she and her mother have been taking care of each other ever since. Zhaohong comes to NYC to marry a Chinese-American man she barely knows, and lives with him in his yuppie high-rise apartment of black, white, and gray modern furniture. (Hsiung-pang's friend also has a similar apartment with stereo equipment and records by Patti Smith). She feels stuck between trying to assimilate as an American, adjust to her in-laws, and feeling tied to her Chinese heritage and feeling like Chinese-Americans don't understand China like she does, like when she wants to bring her mother over from China to take care of her, as is done in many immigrant households, but her husband is against the idea.
The finale, where the women are all drinking on a rooftop, throwing glasses after raising toasts to themselves, reminded me of the end of Waiting to Exhale, where the four women friends all drink outside ringing in the New Year, laughing and celebrating, and I liked that the film ended on a celebration of female friendship and sisterhood.
The film does have some audio issues with obvious ADR dubbing over some actors' dialogue, and the film translates gwailou, Cantonese slang for Westerners or white people, for "Americans," and it is a term that be used in a general sense, but can also be used to be pejorative. It was just a little funny to me to hear the term be simply translated to "Americans."
I liked how this film was a mix of being an American film about immigrants from countries with Chinese dialects, trying to figure out balancing their cultural backgrounds with American life, and feeling torn as immigrant women adjusting to a new culture and life. It's a really good drama, and I'm glad I checked it out.
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