Pushing Hands is Ang Lee's beautiful film about an elderly Chinese man transplanted into his son's American home. While most films about this subject, which for some reason critics like to call "East meets West", hyperbolize the struggles that immigrant Chinese must face, Pushing Hands tends to focus on minutia instead. For example, the elderly grandfather does not know that tin foil cannot be put into the microwave, which leads to a scolding by his caucasian daughter-in-law. All the conflict in the film is grounded in the real world, as opposed to some very abstract 'generational conflict'. Because of this I found this film to be much more rewarding than most other films about Asian-Americans. A must-see for Chinese-Americans and Caucasians alike. Personally, I'd like to watch it with my Chinese grandparents.
Listen for James Schamus's cameo as the voice on the answering machine at the beginning of the film.
Listen for James Schamus's cameo as the voice on the answering machine at the beginning of the film.