All About My Mother

From the perspective of a daughter, Xiaomei Li, in her early twenties facing her own problems, the film telled the story of Peizhen Ji, the mother who just retried from her position as a high school geology teacher. Peizhen Ji was a typical Chinese woman in her fifties, married to Wenfang Li, a physician, for almost thirty years and taking care of her mother-in-law who had Alzheimer's for years. Her start of a seemingly relaxed retirement was immediately complicated by her brother Peiqi Ji (played by Minghao Chen), who held grudge for years yet needing financial support, by her daughter's tangled relationship with a married man, and by pain/symptoms that warranted ultrasound/CT scan etc whole 9 yard of work up.

The daughter and mother relationship, almost reminding of Terms of Endearment, was rocky to start with however step by step, they find ways to be there for each other out of love and family bound.

I cried second half of movie. A lot of touching moments because one way or the other, at some point everyone has probably been there - for example. When Peizhen Ji asked her daughter - "Are you doing this JUST to upset me?", and when she protected her daughter from workplace abuse.

The acting was effective. Fan Xu broke my heart with her scene talking to her mother-in-law. Minghao Chen, playing the angry and tough-guy brother, did a great job with the limited amount of screen time.

Overall a good movie, better than the low score here.