The Joy Luck Club

The Joy Luck Club follows four women who were born in the United States and their mothers, who grew up in China before emigrating. The mothers gather regularly to play mah-jong, and through their shared memories the film moves between their lives in China and the lives their American-raised daughters now lead. When June takes her late mother's place at the mah-jong table and prepares to travel to China to meet the half-sisters her mother had to leave behind, the older women begin recalling their own experiences as daughters, wives and mothers, and the distance between the two generations comes into focus.

Wayne Wang directed the film, working from a screenplay he wrote with Ronald Bass and Amy Tan, and he also produced it alongside Bass and Patrick Markey. It was his first American studio production, released in 1993 before his later films Smoke and Blue in the Face. The cast includes Tsai Chin, Kiều Chinh, Lisa Lu, France Nuyen, Rosalind Chao and Lauren Tom, with 35 credited performers in total.

Made for a budget of 11 million dollars, the film took about 33 million dollars worldwide. On IMDb it holds a rating of 7.7 from around 20,000 votes, while on TMDB it sits at 7.2 from roughly 170 votes. A critics' rating of 7.8 from 85 reviews places it slightly above the audience score on IMDb.