A Thousand Years of Good Prayers

The retired rocket scientist Mr. Kun Shi (Henry O) arrives in the United States of America to visit his daughter Yilan (Feihong Yu), who moved twelve years ago from China to America with her husband Keming and now is divorced. Mr. Shi tries to approach to his estranged daughter and expect to help her to find another husband. Meanwhile he befriends an Iranian old lady (Vida Ghahremani) in a park, and despite their language barrier and difficulties, they meet each other everyday. When Mr. Shi sees his daughter with the Russian Boris (Pasha D. Lychnikoff) late night, they finally have a honest conversation with each other.

"A Thousand Years of Good Prayers" is a pointless family drama that goes nowhere. The story has a promising beginning with the encounter of an old Chinese with his estranged daughter and with an Iranian woman, but the plot and subplots are not well resolved and are cold and emotionless. Maybe if I had had a lesser expectation, I could have liked this little film more. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Mil Anos de Orações" ("A Thousand Years of Prayers")

Boy! Just what we need more of in our world today! Such a thoughtful piece. I could almost want to watch it again, now that I'm more familiar with the story and the language barriers. It moves slowly and quietly, murmuring life along its way. I loved it! I don't want to say anything negative except that a couple of reviews were unduly critical and mean spirited.

So many things are revealed in quiet moments, in small interactions, in talking in a language the other does not understand even, in very broken English. Pa and Yilan's moments are sweet and tense and awkward. Pa is a sweet man, diligent, curious, hard-working, and his daughter does her best to accommodate his old man ways, more by avoiding any cause for confrontation and keeping the conversation minimal, polite and irrelevant. In that respect I fully understand and I do those same things myself. What else can you do with a parent who has no idea who you are, was never affectionate, loving, there even, would never understand you or try or care to, but they're sure they know best. And you know you cannot change their mind, you cannot make them see you or understand you and you certainly cannot make them see their mistakes with you or feel sorry. They could never see their whole existence as a parent as one big mistake. So you see, this is not only the Chinese experience, this is also the Eastern European experience.

So yeah, I felt triggered by this movie big time. I too am annoyed by the fact that my mom thinks she needs to feed me and monitor me when I have magically managed well enough for many, many years now to not starve and keep a house running and be a decent human being. Yes, I felt really triggered by Pa having so many demands of Yilin, insisting she come to dinner to eat his food and that she be home early when he was away from her for years. Calling her a slut doesn't help things.

Of course we can choose to believe his confession at the end. And we never hear why Yilin left Keming, but anyway I am glad she is no longer in China and at least here she can escape prying eyes and make her own life choices, good or bad.

I loved Madam, very posed, beautiful, elegant woman, I wish I knew what she was saying in Farsi, but maybe we're meant to experience it as him. I was also surprised not to be shown any trace of racism here, these Americans are incredibly nice generally. And I too find it so much easier to express my feeling in English. I am more outgoing in English and I use "love you" often enough. Never do that in Romanian. It's a generational thing here, nothing wrong with the language, it is rich enough to express pretty much everything, as I suspect Chinese is too, it's a matter of how you use it.

This movie appears to have been made on a shoestring budget. The script is poor, the dialog seemingly improvised, and the acting , profoundly amateurish. While the original story might have had some merit, the movie destroys that completely. It has none! There are so many dead ends in the movie that one struggles to make sense of exactly what the message is supposed to be. It's just a totally pointless movie, and a huge waste of time to watch! If streaming sites were not so desperate for content, this movie would take its rightful and well deserved place in oblivion.

This movie felt like it lasted over 1,000 years. A really bad soap opera masquerading as a meaningful family "drama" exploring generational and cultural barriers. There is not one genuine moment in its bloated running length. An anamorphic screen image can't disguise what an amateurish production this is – the acting is especially laughable. Story in a nutshell: elderly Chinese man comes to The States to visit his daughter. The father is hoping (and pushing) to become a grandfather. Pathos and a lot of moping ensue. Yawn. The void between father & daughter is played out in interminable dinner scenes. The only thing more boring are the excruciating park bench pidgin English dialogue scenes between the father and an Iranian woman he befriends. Daughter's Russian boyfriend is a cardboard cutout of a joke – like everyone in this epic. And oh yeah, the most unintentionally hilarious line of the movie, "You were never a rocket scientist."