Eat a Bowl of Tea
Director Wayne Wang is in his appealingly low-key groove with this wry comedy-drama, a precursor to his later success withThe Joy Luck Club. It's set in the aftermath of World War II, when the restrictive U.S. immigration laws had finally been relaxed. WWII vet Russell Wong is a young Chinese-American hepcat, strong-armed by his dad (the wonderfully gnarled character actor Victor Wong) into an arranged marriage with a Chinese girl (Cora Miao). The trip to China, and the atmosphere of New York's Chinatown, are neatly mounted. The film's central joke, and metaphor, is the bridegroom's impotence after marriage; he's cowed by the expectations of his traditional culture, which don't necessarily match his own ideas. In its quiet way,Eat a Bowl of Teaexamines the larger issues of ethnic identity while poking affectionate fun at its floundering characters--a distinctly modern attitude for a 1940s story.--Robert Horton