This is an immigrant movie about three ladies, one from Hong Kong, one from mainland China and one from Taiwan, who all settle in New York. Stchingawa marries a Chinese man, but misses home. Sylvia Chang (Taiwan) goes through relationships that are not very fulfilling and Maggie Cheung plays a successful businesswoman. Its basically a story of immigrant life in the big city, always fertile ground for a film. However, the characters, to me, seem underwritten. Maybe that the film was lensed a while ago and I'm seeing it now is the reason, but it just didn't ring true. I like thyat the three ladies became friends, but feel more should have been explored on that. Their individual lives are not as interesting. I cant fault the acting, especially with the always flawless Maggie Cheung in her role, but I felt the film had potential it never realized. It should be remade now, with the same people, and it would probably make a more interesting film. So, better than okay on the strength of the performances, but not as good as it could have been.
Add a Review
-
crossbow01068 March 2008
-
kemmellie5 September 2006Stanley Kwan's film, "Full Moon in New York," is a great film about Chinese immigration to America. It looks at three women, from Taiwan (Sylvia Chang), mainland China (Gaowa Siqin), and Hong Kong (Maggie Cheung), respectively, and how they overcome socio-cultural differences to forge a friendship based on mutual suffering and understanding in surviving life in "the Big Apple." While issues involving Chinese labor, Chinatowns, stereotypes of Asian American actors, and politics are touched on, they are not explored in depth. Still, Kwan provides an interesting character study of three women's struggle to make a name for themselves and find happiness and love in a society where racial prejudice and stereotypes, as well as cultural differences isolate them. Yet they find solace in each other's experiences and become friends despite old territorial grievances and lack of a common language.
-
yadavanita-1809322 February 2021Three women from three asain countries(considering hong kong seperate) meet in New york of all the places in the world and form a uncanny friendship considering they belong from different regions and share different professions.
One is a aspiring actress trying her hand in different acting auditions, One is a daughter of a chinese restaurant owner, herself working there; and one is a newly married trying her luck in love.
It may not be a "Eat Sleep Man Woman" by ang lee, or "Taipei Story" by edward yang but Stanley Kwan's this film sure does leave a mark.
The lives of the three leads could have been explored more but still how much is shown does a good job for us in understanding their situations and problems.
This is a type of movie that you may forget about after some time, but still remember in a vague memory that you had seen it. It manages to keep you entertained in its less than 90 min runtime, which is enough for it. Seeing it after knowing the leading ladies and their other works, especially Maggie cheung and Sylvia Chang will surely help you like the film better. -
Sylvia Chang, Maggie Cheung, and Siqin Gaowa were originally from China. Now they live in New York City. They speak Chinese to each other, and sometimes sing Chinese songs. Their lovers and husbands are Chinese. But they feel themselves losing their identities in Manhattan.
The melting pot that is part of the mythology of the United States is a great promise and a great threat. I grew up with relatives who fled Europe to get here. I feel I understand what makes this nation so good in a way that some one who grew up never knowing anything different, or caring about someone who could tell them about it can. It's a commonplace for many, and so not valued. For people like me, the promise of America is its indifference. When it works well, no one cares if I go to a synagogue instead of a church, or don't go at all, whether I speak English or Yiddish or Gullah at home.
But that indifference is also corrosive. If no one cares, then why should you? And that is the strain that these three women come to recognize and seek each other out for. It's how communities are formed. But for how long? -
grimmfo9 October 2004Stanley Kwan's "Full Moon In New York" is a tale of three very different Chinese women (a passive one from the mainland, an aspiring actress from Taiwan, and a pushy business woman from Hong Kong) living in New York City and their unlikely friendship. Kwan's direction of the terrific screenplay by Yan and Zhong is first-rate. The three leading ladies are all excellent, as is, I believe, Richard Hsiung (the credits are not clear), as Stchingowa's rich, uncomprehending husband. Search it out - a wonderful little film.
-
philosopherjack10 February 2023Stanley Kwan's absorbing Full Moon in New York is built around the friendship between three young women living in the big city, linked by common Asian heritage (Taiwan, Hong Kong, mainland China) but otherwise very different in their life experiences and aspirations. Ms. Lee (Maggie Cheung) spends some of the time working in her family's restaurant, supplemented with various other deals and trades, prompting several discussions about the perceived risk of opening a Chinese restaurant anywhere other than in Chinatown, and about appetite for risk in general. Ms. Wang (Sylvia Chang) tries to make it as an actress, which at that time typically necessitates having to specifically explain her suitability, as an Asian woman, for a particular role. Mrs. Poon (Yat-Gam Chu) comes to America to be married while barely able to speak English - her husband treats her well, but won't yield to her deep desire to bring her mother over, either ignoring the request, or rationalizing it away as an example of old thinking. In other ways though, old practices and expectations still apply, for instance in the notion of parents finding a suitable marriage match for their children (even applying to Ms. Lee, whose romantic relationships are with other women); Kwan's view of New York is very much that of an outsider, filming the city mainly either through high-rise windows or in disembodied panning shots, and finding it to be imperfectly integrated. Some of the film's most delightful passages simple observe the women as they hang out together, messing about in the restaurant kitchen or chatting about such mundane matters as shaving their legs; Kwan presents such moments both as an assertion of individual identity and as formative experience. Of course, the act of formation, the balancing of self-discovery and assimilation never reaches an end point, perhaps rendering the film's unresolved ending inevitable; even so, it's among the relatively few films that one might certainly wish to have gone on for longer.