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Movie Reviews reviews A thousand years of good prayers 
 
This is a well acted story based on the book of a collection of stories of 
modern life in China compared to the United States.  It tells the story of the 
relationship between a father and a daughter, the father Mr. Shi is played by 
Henry O (Romeo must die) while the daughter Yilan is played by the lovely 
Feihong Yu(reminds me of a young Michelle Yeoh).

We join as Yilan collects her father from the airport, as he is visiting 
America for one of his tours, but as with any concerned parent, what he is 
really interested in, is if his daughter is happy in America.  At first as with 
any cultural change Mr. Shi is a little perplexed at his new surroundings, from 
the unemployed girl getting a suntan, and having to avert his eyes while trying 
to hold a decent conversation with her will be cause for some amusement, 
showing the diversity between values from communist China and the contemporary 
United States.

The highlight of the movie are the conversations Mr. Shi has with an Iranian 
woman(played wonderfully by Vida Ghahremani) on the bench at a local park, both 
hardly speak any english and their atempts to communicate using all they can 
think of is sure to ring a bell with many individuals, or people we have tried 
to communicate to before, after a while you as well as Mr. Shi look forward to 
the conversations in the park, they act as a suitable distraction for the 
problems going on at home.

We find as Mr. Shi is reaching the end of his life he wants to make up for 
whatever pain he may have caused his daughter, although well meaning, we find 
that his daughter is a little distant and reluctant to accept his advice after 
what it seems as an absent father for so long, and like any american she 
certainly doesn't feel he has the right to meddle in her affairs.


 
 Mr D Stevens is a reviewer at http://armchairbuff.blogspot.com/  Movie reviews 
 Keywords: Movie Reviews,  film reviews,  A thousand years of good prayers, 
Henry O, Feilong Yu, drama,  relationship, father and daughter, chinese, hand 
gestures, culture shock, Based on a novel 
 Article contains 327 words

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