LONG LIFE, HAPPINESS & PROSPERITY (ODEON FILMS, 2002)

By Rick Jackson

Few films these days inspire you as much as director Mina Shum's latest effort, Long Life, Happiness And Prosperity. Set in the Chinese Canadian community, it is a profound story of hope and faith in a world which is often difficult to live in. In the context of seeing it in the current troubled times when the United States and her allies (including Canada) may be going to war with Iraq, it is a refreshing look at the individual lives of a thriving suburb where hopelessness and despair are replaced by the indirect actions of a twelve‑year‑old girl named Mindy.

The screenplay by Shum and Dennis Foon is a celebration of life itself. All the characters in Long Life have all the tools they need to enrich their lives but they just don't understand how to apply their knowledge and devotion to life. Everything is so close but far away. Not until they realize the choices they have made can actually make a difference do they take heart in their own beliefs through religion, love and happiness.

Using magic realism, Shum and producer Raymond Massey show real life stories and how the lives portrayed are affected by magic. It doesn't all seem far‑fetched, either. If you are really listening to what each character says and watching how each handles their own predicaments, there is a life lesson to be learned.

Especially effective throughout is Peter Wunstorf's cinematography. The collaborative effort between Shum and Wunstorf in their use of the Chinese color system: blue/green in Shuck's story represents youth or age, red in Mindy's story represents red, and in Bing's story, gold is the color of royalty.

Valerie Tian plays Mindy like any other girl her age. She cares about her mother Kin (Sandra Oh) and wishes her only the best in life because she is overworked, lonely, and struggling financially. When Mindy finds a book of Taoist charms in a local shop, she sees a way to make some important changes. Her attempts are, albeit, naive and silly from anyone who doesn't believe, but in some strange small way the lives of her mother and her community become better off. As you watch it all unfold, you are capitivated by Mindy and those she meets in her day‑to‑day world.

Ric Young plays Bing Lai, who works at the butcher shop. For twenty years he has felt the burden of working in his father's shadow. In Hong Kong he has become famous in the butcher trade, while Bing labors as a worker with the hope of bringing his own son Peter (Kameron Louangxay) into the family business. When Peter rejects his father's wishes, you can feel the hurt that the father experiences. However, you can't help notice it is almost exactly how Bing's father must have felt twenty years earlier. Although you never see it in the film, it is deeply felt in the emotions on both sides. The day Bing wins the lottery does not mean long life, happiness and prosperity without love and respect. On those things, money does not come with any guarantee. When his wife Ada (Christina Ma) and Peter leave for good, it is their liberation from someone tied to an ancient custom from the old country.

For the middle‑aged married couple of Hun Ping and Shuck Wong (Tsai Chin and Chang Tseng) life is lonely without their daughter who has left home to go to university. When Shuck loses his job, he feels a heavy burden on his shoulders. Thanks to his own faith and Hun Ping's in the Yellow God and a lost turtle, life doesn't have to end but begin in something wonderful.

Long Life, Happiness and Prosperity has also something to do with our acceptance of the life choices we make in our daily lives, in addition to our simple faith in humanity and religion to guide us.

When Mindy's charms go astray, they are symbolic of how oblivious our lives can become if we let it happen. Only when we share a mutual concern, in the case of Kin and Alvin (Russell Yuen) who eventually find love together, and the Wongs who have their happiness restored through their own love and acceptance of each other, can we all find long life, happiness and prosperity.

As for Bing Lai, he has found it, too, through his own luck at winning the lottery. By basking in his own personal prosperity, he has found happiness and, hopefully, long life.

Long Life, Happiness, And Prosperity is one of the most important films about the human condition ever made. It demands to be seen twice to appreciate its full impact.

February 22, 2003