An American movie shot in mainland China (and San Francisco) and spoken in Mandarin (and English), about a family of Chinese-Americans, all three of whom can use chopsticks but only one of whom can speak Chinese, who visit their nearest relatives in the homeland. ("Who are these strange people?" the neighbors speculate. "Japanese?" "No. Filipinos, maybe.") These nearest relatives happen to be also a family of three, and since the youngest of them is a high-school girl, while the youngest of the visitors is a somewhat beefy college boy (who shocks the host patriarch at one point by playfully tousling his father's hair), and since the girl is already the object of a local boy's affections, some mild tensions begin to stir. They do not go so far as to "erupt." The clash of cultures here is scrupulously rubber-tipped and feather-stuffed, with plenty of smiles and chuckles all round. This, after all, is pre-eminently a piece of cultural-exchange cinema, and in some ways is as benign, bland, and innocuous as a Bob Hope television special from Peking (guest star, Crystal Gayle) or an exhibition volleyball match with the U.S. Olympians or perhaps a good-will tour by Richard M. Nixon. In other ways, however, its observations of contrasting (but cross-pollinating) lifestyles are unusually alert, penetrating, intimate, and individual, blessedly free of the urge to generalize and summarize, much less take sides, and always in service to the well-knit circle of main characters. With Peter Wang, Kelvin Han Lee, Li Qinqin, and Wang Xiao; directed by Peter Wang. (1986) — Duncan Shepherd
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