The Joy Luck Club (1993)

and the Stories That Set Them Free

Four Chinese-American mothers and four daughters, and what got passed down between them. What it teaches about never feeling enough, the trophy daughter, an arrangement fair on paper, making yourself small, the glass pearls, and the story that frees the next generation.

The Joy Luck Club (1993). Directed by Wayne Wang, screenplay by Amy Tan and Ronald Bass from Tan’s 1989 novel. Kieu Chinh as Suyuan Woo, Tsai Chin as Lindo Jong, France Nuyen as Ying-Ying St. Clair, Lisa Lu as An-Mei Hsu, and as their daughters Ming-Na Wen as June, Tamlyn Tomita as Waverly, Lauren Tom as Lena and Rosalind Chao as Rose.

Four mothers who came from China, four daughters raised in San Francisco, and what each one learned from the other.

A note before you read. This page discusses a film that includes a rape, a death by suicide, a mother’s part in her infant’s death during a severe depression, and abusive marriages. Nothing is described in detail, and no method is named. If this is close to what happened to you, RAINN is there any hour at 1-800-656-4673. If someone is hurting you, the National Domestic Violence Hotline is 1-800-799-7233. If you are thinking about suicide, call or text 988. Every current number is on the Resources page.

This page belongs to On Screen. It is the series’ first film centered on Chinese-American women, and only the second Hollywood film, after Flower Drum Song in 1961, with a mostly Asian cast telling a contemporary Asian-American story. It is a film about mothers and daughters, told four times over, and it is the richest family film on this page.

Like every entry on the On Screen page, it reads a story for the pattern it teaches, and makes no claim about anyone’s diagnosis. None of the four mothers is a villain. Each survived something terrible in China, and each tried, imperfectly, to give her daughter a better life. This page reads what got passed down, and what the daughters, and their mothers, did with it.

No line of the film’s dialogue is quoted on this page. There is no quote page for it that could be checked, so everything here is drawn from the plot of record.

The Story

Four women in San Francisco, who emigrated from China, formed the Joy Luck Club: they played mahjong and told each other stories for years. When Suyuan Woo dies, her daughter, June, takes her place at the table. At June’s farewell party, before she travels to China to meet the twin half-sisters her mother had to leave behind during the war, the mothers and daughters remember.

Lindo and Waverly. As a girl in China, Lindo is married to a boy from a wealthy family, in a loveless marriage, blamed by her mother-in-law for not having a son. She escapes it with a clever story about a dream. In America, her daughter Waverly becomes a chess champion as a child, and quits when she can’t stand her mother’s constant boasting. As an adult, Waverly brings home her white fiancé, Rich, hoping her mother will like him, and the dinner goes badly. At a hair salon before the wedding, the two finally talk, and Lindo gives them her blessing.

Ying-Ying and Lena. In China, Ying-Ying’s charming husband turns out to be abusive and unfaithful. In a deep depression, she has a part in her infant son’s death, which haunts her for the rest of her life. In America, she sees that her daughter, Lena, is unhappy: Lena and her husband, Harold, who is also her boss, split every cost evenly from a list, and he ignores her needs. Ying-Ying, finding her own strength again, knocks over a table and tells Lena to leave until Harold gives her what she wants. Later, Lena is happy with someone new.

An-Mei and Rose. As a girl, An-Mei goes to live with her mother, who was cast out by her family for becoming a rich man’s fourth wife. An-Mei learns the truth: the man’s second wife befriended her mother and lured her to him, he raped her, and her family didn’t believe her. Her mother dies by suicide, timed to force the man to honor her and raise her children well. In America, An-Mei’s daughter, Rose, has married Ted, and has made herself small to fit into his world. An-Mei tells her the story. Rose stands up to Ted, tells him she was wrong to think her love was worth less than his, and he stops taking her for granted.

Suyuan and June. During the war, Suyuan, ill and near death, had to leave her twin baby daughters by the road, hoping they’d be rescued. In America, she has high hopes for June, who never seems to meet them. After a dinner where Suyuan seems to say that Waverly has a style June lacks, June confronts her. Suyuan gives June the necklace she has worn since June was born, and tells her the truth: June has the best heart, and that’s why she is so proud of her.

At the end, June goes to China, and meets her sisters.

The Joy Luck Club was added to the National Film Registry in 2020.

What It Gets Right

A great deal. It gives eight women eight inner lives, across two countries and two generations. It refuses to make the mothers either saints or monsters. It shows how pain passed from one generation to the next, and how it can also be stopped there. And it lets the mothers’ stories become the thing that frees the daughters.

What It Teaches

1. Never quite enough

June grows up feeling she never meets her mother’s hopes: not at the piano, not in school, not in love, not at work. When her mother seems to say that Waverly has a style June doesn’t, it confirms what June has always believed: she’s the disappointment.

The Decoder’s Card 13, Moving Goalposts, is “Nothing is ever enough.” For many daughters, it’s the shape of a whole childhood. And yet the film’s turn is that Suyuan never thought June was a failure. She was proud of her, for the best heart. The goalposts June felt moving were partly her mother’s hopes, and partly her own fear. Sometimes the only way to know is to ask out loud, as June finally does.

2. The trophy daughter

Waverly is a chess prodigy, and her mother boasts about her to everyone. Waverly, embarrassed and angry, quits, and when she tries to come back, her confidence is gone.

The Decoder’s Card 54, Trophy on the Shelf, is “Your image, not you, is the point.” A child who is shown off can start to feel that the showing off is the point, and that she belongs to someone else’s pride. Lindo and Waverly find their way back to each other in a salon chair, when Lindo finally says what she thinks of the man her daughter loves.

3. The list

Lena and Harold split everything equally, by a list. It sounds fair. It isn’t: Harold, who is also her boss, dominates the arrangement, and her needs don’t make the list.

The Decoder’s Card 8, Financial Superiority, is “Using money as control and leverage,” and it can hide inside “equal.” Many women have lived inside an arrangement that was fair on paper and lopsided in fact. Ying-Ying’s answer is to break something, loudly, and to tell her daughter she’s allowed to leave until she gets what she needs.

4. Making herself small

Ted was first drawn to Rose because she was direct and sure of herself. Then, trying to fit into his world, she became quiet and agreeable, until there was very little of her left, and the two of them grew apart.

The Decoder’s Card 49, Identity Erosion, is “Slowly dissolving your sense of self.” Rose’s mother hands her the antidote: the story of a grandmother who was never believed. Rose stands up, tells Ted to leave, and tells him she was wrong to think her love was worth less than his.

5. The glass pearls

When An-Mei arrives at the rich man’s house, his second wife gives her a beautiful pearl necklace. An-Mei is won over. Her mother breaks it, to show her the pearls are glass.

The Decoder’s Card 24, Love Bombing, is “Excessive flattery and intensity early on”: the gift that comes before the trap. The second wife’s kindness was how An-Mei’s mother had been lured there in the first place. It’s one of the film’s quietest lessons, and one of its most useful: a gift that arrives too fast, from someone who wants something, is worth holding up to the light.

6. What gets passed down

Each of the four mothers carries something from China that she’s afraid to pass on: the loveless marriage, the despair, the shame, the impossible choice in a war. The film’s hope is that telling the story is how you stop it. Ying-Ying tells Lena. An-Mei tells Rose. Lindo tells Waverly. Suyuan tells June, at last, that she’s enough.

June goes to China to meet the sisters her mother had to leave. The story comes full circle in an embrace.

Mothers and Daughters, Side by Side

	Mermaids (1990)	Real Women Have Curves (2002)	The Joy Luck Club (1993)
What the mother feared	Staying put	Losing her daughter	Passing her pain down
What the daughter needed	To stay	To go	To hear the story
What changed it	A conversation after a crisis	Her father’s support	Four mothers telling the truth

Mothers and daughters are the deepest seam in this series. The Joy Luck Club says the most hopeful thing about them: the story you were afraid to tell might be the one that frees her.

If You Grew Up on This

Many of us watched this with our mothers, and cried at different moments. Nothing on this page asks you to see your mother as a villain. The useful thing is to look at it clearly from where you stand now.

Some questions to sit with:

Did you grow up feeling you never quite met your mother’s hopes? Did you ever ask her?
Were you ever shown off, until the showing off felt like the point?
Is there an arrangement in your life that’s fair on paper and lopsided in fact?
Have you made yourself small to fit into someone’s world?
What story from your family’s past would you want your daughter, or your mother, to know?

Four mothers told the truth, and four daughters were freed by it.

You’re the audience now. Your story might be the one that frees someone.