SYNOPSICS
Long Life, Happiness & Prosperity (2002) is a English,Cantonese movie. Mina Shum has directed this movie. Sandra Oh,Valerie Tian,Ric Young,Tseng Chang are the starring of this movie. It was released in 2002. Long Life, Happiness & Prosperity (2002) is considered one of the best Comedy,Drama,Family,Fantasy,Romance movie in India and around the world.
Mindy Ho, an eccentric, strong-minded 12-year-old, stages Taoist magical experiments to save her harried single mother from financial and romantic ruin. Her misdirected charms appear to cause an aging security guard to lose his job and a local butcher to win the lottery, ultimately forcing each man to face his worst fears. Whether it's through Mindy's spells, her monumental sense of purpose--or it's that life's mysterious logic is at work--her mother's drab existence is enlivened.
Long Life, Happiness & Prosperity (2002) Trailers
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Long Life, Happiness & Prosperity (2002) Reviews
A wistful and occasionally hilarious film about taking charge...the wrong way!
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.
Sweet, but slight
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.
Very enjoyable but I can understand Frank L. having some concerns
This is a "slice of life" film about some people in the Chinese community of Vancouver. The leading characters are a single mom and her super-superstitious little girl. Because of the cute little girl's machinations, their lives become intertwined in the stories of several others in the neighborhood. I particularly enjoyed the unforeseen consequences that occur when the girl tries to slip her mother and a male friend a love potion. The film is very atypical compared to a Hollywood style film in that the plot is very slim and the emphasis is on people. Plus, not all the story lines are worked out perfectly--there are plenty of dangling plots that do not get resolved when the film concludes. Both these aspects of the film may put off many viewers, but if you appreciate independent and foreign films, this will not be a problem. As for me, I liked the characters and the way their lives were portrayed in such simple ways. This was a very enjoyable film--one I could have easily scored an 8. However, I also realize that my enjoyment of the film may just be because I am not an Asian and I didn't notice all the flaws in the way they portrayed the Chinese-Canadian community. I did feel rather perplexed that Sandra Oh was cast in the lead because I know she's of Korean decent--and it did seem very odd to have all the adults in the film speaking Chinese (I assume Cantonese) and yet she spoke almost none. She's a good actress but just seemed in the wrong element here. In addition, whether or not these superstitions, good luck charms, potions, etc. are real I have no idea and I could easily see people assuming this is typical for the community. According to Frank L.'s review, he was upset about the misrepresentations of his culture and I just have to assume the film makers took a lot of liberties about this.
Meet Sandra Oh when she was, "Oh, she's Canadian?"
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!"
A thoroughly charming film
This is a completely charming movie about a little girl's attempts to use traditional Chinese magic to improve her mother's life. Valerie Tian completely steals the show in the role of the little girl. Sandra Oh and Chang Tseng also give good performances, as you would expect.