Long Life, Happiness, and ProsperityRated General ~ Runs 91 minutes
Dir.: Mina Shum, Canada, 2003
Sandra Oh, Valerie Tian, Chang Tseng
"Long Life, Happiness & Prosperity weaves three interconnected stories set in Vancouver's Chinese community into a magical and heart-warming film. Twelve-year-old Mindy is bent on fixing her overworked mother's life by using Taoist spells, but her amateur magical efforts inevitably misfire, instead wreaking havoc on the lives of unsuspecting community members. This spell-casting is the connecting thread between the film's separate stories referred to in the film's title. Long Life is the story of an older security guard named Shuck who loses his job and tries to hide the shame from his wife. Happiness chronicles Mindy's efforts to help her mother by using magic to make her win the lottery and fall in love with her charming co-worker Alvin. Prosperity follows a local butcher caught in intergenerational conflicts, simultaneously trying to make amends with his estranged father and threatening to repeat the familial pattern with his own son, who wants to become a monk. This film is reminiscent of Amelie, although Mindy's meddling is much more comically hapless and unwitting. Director Shum lovingly crafts these three truthfully bittersweet tales, and endows each with lightness and humour enough to make them thoroughly engaging." - Exclaim!. "A nearly flawless film... oscillating between gentle humour and harsh reality, Long Life, Happiness And Prosperity is an urban fairy tale that charms us into a willing suspension of disbelief... A comedy that ends happily, with love - romantic and parental - superseding magic." - Susan Walker, The Toronto Star."Will certainly grab you by the heart." - Liz Braun, The Toronto Sun