New York City, June 29, 2003
For Long Life, Happiness and Prosperity , Mina Shum's third feature, the award-winning filmmaker of Double Happiness returns to her hometown—the Cantonese-Canadian community of Vancouver. In this film about hope and possibility, newcomer Valerie Tian plays Mindy Ho, a Tao magic-obsessed twelve-year-old determined to change the fate of her single mother (Sandra Oh), an overworked and underpaid waitress at a local dim sum restaurant. Mindy’s dabbling with Taoist magic spells wreaks havoc: an aging man loses his job as a security guard, a butcher wins the lottery, and several romantic entanglements occur.
Backstage prior to the screening,
AsianConnections' Lia Chang visited with Anna and Mina as they talked about being artists in the midst of Chinese family expectations.
Anna: I've been dying to interview you since I saw the first film of yours
Double Happiness. I was very curious. How did you have the nerve to make a film like that. Did your parents see it? Being a Chinese woman to show those aspects of life that you showed in that film.
Mina: I think in a way it was the best therapy you could possibly have---- to make a film about it and publicize how difficult it is to have the courage to be your own person. When I first wanted to be a filmmaker, a 5'3" girl wanting to be a filmmaker, all I could hope for was someone else who felt like me who understood what it was like to please everyone and yet having your own personal agenda that conflicted with your parents. I wrote it in three days because I needed to purge. I'd moved out of my parents house, I'd done everything wrong, I'd finally talked my dad into recognizing me again. I just sat there and wrote the script. It took me four years to rewrite the script. I think for many reasons as a sort of catharsis, you sort of get it out. And then hearing audience members respond-other young women, other young Asian men come to me and go, "Oh my God!"
Anna: It's unheard of because none of us would ever do something directly against our parents’ beliefs. Yet you kind of like pulled the rug out from everybody and did it. And that was so amazing!
Mina: I aired all the dirty laundry.
Anna: You did. How did your parents react?
Mina: Well, my father wasn't pleased. He didn't really say much after the screening. My mother was very supportive and then the response to the film, "Well now the Shum name is up there on the big screen, well I have to forgive my daughter." Even with this new film
Long Life, my father had trouble with it. But he's very proud of me being able to make a life for myself as a filmmaker. So, one night was so funny, he said, "I like the new film--more colors." And I said, "You're a real film critic dad. You better get over that."
Anna: That's so great because being a clothing designer, when I wanted to go to school to study clothing design, my parents said, "Why do you want to be a dressmaker?" And it wasn't until my first fashion show and then suddenly my father was better with the media than I was. He knew every single news reporter, he knew who was important and who wasn't, he knew it all. So it's incredible. They do come around. And I think maybe they're relieved a little bit too that it's out there.
Mina: Yes. I think they're happy. They still want me to get a full time job. You know the freelancing and the idea that you run your own business is just-how insecure can that be? They didn't want me to go to film school. From their background, I might a well be a prostitute.
Anna: So it was really autobiographical.
Mina: I call it semi-autobiographical. Cause you know those ten minute scenes where my father wouldn't talk to me, they became 30 second scenes where my father didn't talk to me. Cinema doesn't have room for that kind of real time truth. It's pretty banal at times. I say it's more truth than it is fact. I was getting the essence of what it was like to be alone. And I felt very isolated.
