Tampa Bay Times from St. Petersburg, Florida • 59

3 1 01 YOUR WEEKLY LOOK AT THE LATEST AND GREATEST MOVIES, TELEVISION AND VIDEO 1 ft: v. BOUND BY BLOOD: The mothers their sorrows. Hollywood Picture and the daughters of the Joy Luck Club share their joys and ly there are times in Wang's splendid adaptation where the necessary abundance of flashbacks and voice-over narration make us wish for a more linear, conventional approach. There isn't any other way The Joy Luck Club could be faithful to Tan's book, in which remembrances and motivations flow in seemingly haphazard fashion, then converge in a flood of tears and inspiration. Like the novel, Wang's film wears its pathos with pride.

Only the most hard-hearted moviegoer could resist Wang and screenwriters Tan and Ronald Bass (Rain Man) have devised a necessary wrap-around structure to The Joy Luck Club, a send-off party for June (Ming-Na Wen,) the daughter of Suyuan (Kieu Chihn.) who died three months earlier. Suyuan's worst regret in life was deserting her twin daughters in China to save their lives and hers during World War II. Now it is June's duty to travel there, meet the half-sisters she never knew existed and share her memories of the mother they never knew. The trip has been arranged by the other three middle-aged members of the Joy Luck Club, a weekly mah jongg gathering Suyuan began in China during the lean years. Within the revelry of June's party, these women have been taught the Chinese way of "learning to swallow other people's misery and eat other people's bitterness" in an Asian society where a man's is judged by his belches and number of sons.

Each of the women bossy Auntie Lindo (the wonderful Tsai Chin,) refined Auntie Ying Ying (The World ofSuzie Wongs France Nuyen) and devoted Auntie An Mei (Lisa Lu) share stories of MOVIE REVIEW Vie Joy Luck Club Grade: A- Director Wayne Wang Cast: Kieu Chink, Tsai Chin, France Nuyen, Lisa Lu, Ming-Na Wen, Tamlyn Tomita, Lauren Tom, Rosalind Chao Screenplay: Amy Tan and Ronald Bass, from a novel by Tan Rating: profanity, sexual situations, violence Running time: 135 min. liiV Kill. This heart-wrenching tale of the joyful, often painful bonds between mothers and daughters transcends its Chinese orientation. By STEVE PERSALL Times Film Critic One of the most shocking scenes in the extraordinary film The Joy Luck Club depicts an outcast daughter in wartime China who painfully carves a slice of her arm and drops the skin into a soup kettle. According to custom, this grisly broth will cure her dying mother, the woman who pushed her away in shame years before.

The pain of the flesh and the worth of the pain," novelist Amy Tan wrote in her 1989 bestseller, This is how a daughter honors her mother, respect so deep that it is in your bones." The Joy Luck Club is a movie that gets under your skin, a shamelessly emotional anthology of stories about pain and respect that ebbs and flows among mothers and daughters. The fact that the women in director Wayne Wang's cross-generational film are Chinese doesn't mean that these feelings are foreign to us just ask any of the patrons who sniffled and sobbed through a recent screening. Tan's novel was branded "unfilmable" when it captured readers' hearts, a collection of 16 stories told by eight women that spanned several decades. Certain THE FRANCIS WILSON PLAYHOUSE Little Theatre of Clearwater presents "HMS Pinafore" by Gilbert Sullivan group rates available Adults $10 Students $8 Sept 23 thru Oct. 3 Sept.

23-25 8:19 PM Sept 29-Oct. 2 8:15 PM Sat 4 Sun. Matinees 2:15 PM i Sept 25 4 26 Oct 2 3 302 Seminole St, Clearwater 446-1360 mm 7 sheer volume of emotions and credible hardships on display here makes The Joy Luck Club a heart-wrenching experience. That, in turn, makes it a crucial step forward in the development of Asian-related cinema with Hollywood dollars. I've now seen the film twice once in a predominantly Asian-American audience in Los Angeles and again with a fairly homogenized Tampa Bay crowd.

The fact that both groups laughed and cried at the same material speaks volumes for the skill and appeal of Wang's film. Not since Terms of Endearment has the brittle bond between mothers and daughters been presented in such effective and entertaining fashion. The Joy Luck Club is an expertly manipulative tearjerker and that alone will cause some critics and moviegoers to dismiss it, but anyone who ever exchanged angry words or felt embarrassed by a parent will be relieved by Wang and Tan's central reminder The same love that sometimes opens painful wounds can also cauterize and heal. It', im rnMPPPT IN CONCERT their tragic pasts, often brilliantly evoked by Wang as burnished memories filmed on location in China. Lindo's comical escape from an arranged marriage, Ying Ying's horrifying revenge on a playboy husband and An Mei's lesson in self-worth from her concubine mother boast richly textured characters and scenarios.

The mother-daughter connection also goes in the other chronological direction, with the aunties' Americanized daughters who have "learned to drink more Coca-Cola than sorrow." In addition to June's journey of self-awareness, we watch Rose (Rosalind Chao) and Lena (Lauren Tom) struggle through unsatisfying marriages and realize how the troubled relationships of their mothers Ying Ying and An Mei have tainted their own lives, half a world and century away. lindo and her daughter Waverly (Tam-lyn Tomita) share the most recognizable relationship, two stubborn women bound by blood and separated by what each thinks is best for the other. Each of these mini-dramas could merit its own movie, but the ft us OCTOBER 16th 1:00 to 4.D0 ft ft ft ft i i'1 iJL BLVD. 545-8288 Vrfc Vf fcflf ft ft ft 1 (fault COSTUMES UAKt-UF WIGS MASKS HATS ACCESSORIES recomnom iallooih Seating Pass $6 in advance $8 at the door On sale at Berean Christian Store, 3993 Tyrone Uncle Al's United In Spirit, 4640 Park Blvd. N.j and Suncoast Cathedral.

SUNCOAST CATHEDRAL 2300 62nd Avenue North Information 522-2171 Iff III 6850 PM FRIDAY, OCTOBER 1, 1993 TIMES 3.