david l
Pushing Hands was a solid directorial debut for Ang Lee. The cultural crash and generational gap are themes that he would go on to explore more forcefully in future movies, but those were still well handled in this highly emotional flick. The acting was also quite strong, but otherwise the movie is technically inferior and only sporadically showing glimpses of Lee's greatness.
Rated 3.5/5 Stars •
Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars
03/31/23
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Audience Member
Do you find watching director's debuts interesting? Quite often they seem to be either in a distinct style but highly flawed which the director then refines over his career or they are some great masterpiece the magic of which never quite gets reproduced, or somewhere in between. If you look at Ang Lee's filmography the diversity of the films he makes is outstanding - obscure Chinese language films, martial arts, period drama, Hollywood action blockbuster, some sexy films, even Brokeback Mountain was his! In a way I feel Pushing Hands summed up all of these - East meets West. Being a Westerner with some Eastern interests I find the subject matter personally interesting, I'm not sure if it was the film biased towards the Eastern ways or if it was me but it seemed a much better way of life. The characters were not really real individuals but representative - caricatures in a way, archetypes. Grandpa representative of all Eastern culture and the lady of all American culture (I won't say Western culture as America is a cesspit all of it's own!). The son representative of the conflict between the ways and the difficulties of integrating them together. The little boy to a lesser extend but representative of the student of both - our generation really, the generation born after East has come West. The stark contrast was shown most emphatically in the opening scenes - the lady stressed out, angry and at her computer, grandpa doing tai chi and meditating, the lady eating some meagre meal and Grandpa some massive bowl of nutritious food, then we see them both through the windows of the house from outside - each at their own window divided sharply by a wall between them. Throughout the film Ang Lee pointed out some key points he had observed from each culture - tai chi, yin yang, diet, working life, medical systems and health. At first I thought it was not really critical, just observing and still that could be the case but certainly it doesn't paint a positive picture of American life - but then one does not need criticism and bias for that to happen! Ang Lee is probably a bit of a philosopher because the film does have that kind of dry, but not cold, intelligent analytical edge which is then suddenly flooded with intense emotion every now and then (the son's upheaval of the kitchen then, later, crying into his father's chest in the jail cell, Grandpa's love story with Mrs Chen and the lady's rather sharp changes - both in attitude and movement), something that seems to happen with philosophers, the feel of it was reminiscent of some of Rohmer's in that way. The ending was obviously symbolic - the lady eating Chinese food and drinking Chinese tea, the son realising his errors and asking for forgiveness and Grandpa realising the futility of it all and just wanting some peace in his old age. The film does have flaws and is often unpolished, and Ang Lee has probably done much 'better' films but this one does have a very particular charm. The story of 'the in-law leaves the family home out of honour before he is kicked out' is very cliche (but maybe it wasn't back then). When scoring the films I do incorporate some objective analysis but mostly it is subjective and based on personal interests and enjoyment. I'm going to give this 6 out of 10 which seems unfair to some of the other films which are 'better' really, but in Pushing Hands I liked the youthful, or 'early career' innocence and charm, the flaws add that that, I liked the observational philosophy of the issues and contrast of East / West and I liked some of the specific subject matter like yin yang and energy. It is a good springtime film.
Rated 3/5 Stars •
Rated 3 out of 5 stars
02/18/23
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Audience Member
Restrained, if not entirely subtle. One can see Ang Lee's characteristics as a bUdGeoning director. Sensitive yet dignified.
Rated 3.5/5 Stars •
Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars
02/04/23
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Audience Member
Ang Lee's debut film and he only got better.
Rated 4/5 Stars •
Rated 4 out of 5 stars
02/01/23
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Audience Member
The "climax" really caught me off-guard due to its (SPOILER!) comicality, which is simply opposite to the rest of this peaceful, "Tai-chi-like" film (strangely enough, this is also his most "serious" and dramatic films in the "Father Knows Best" trilogy). Still, the tactfulness of Ang Lee was totally intact and his mastery of the family theme and old-new/tradition-modernity conflict already shone brightly in this debut feature (it must be noted that Lee had been out-of-job and full-time "house-husband" for almost a decade waiting for this first chance, and lucky for us all he was able to grip this chance to show off his genius immediately). Still, the film made me a little bit unease due to its not-so-strong cast (except for the late Lung Sihung, who would be Lee's close collaborator and "the Father Figure" for the director's next several films) and the somehow lax direction in some sequences (and of course, the understandable and philosophical but utterly comical climax). Still, Ang Lee really started strong with this film, and the "Father Knows Best" trilogy is really one of my all-time-favourite trilogies with its coherent humour, charm, wit, and above all, humanity.
Rated 4/5 Stars •
Rated 4 out of 5 stars
02/19/23
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Audience Member
I wanted to like this, but it's just so clunky. Bad acting, clichéd script. And it's not helped by the region 4 DVD, with its off-centre transfer (so many boom mics) and bad subtitling. A mediocre, inauspicious beginning.
Rated 2.5/5 Stars •
Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars
01/30/23
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