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Jasmine Women: A Thought-Provoking Tale of Three Women   Jasmine Women is a 130-minute DVD in Mandarin with English subtitles. The title in Chinese is Molihua Kai, meaning “Jasmine Flowers in Bloom.” But Mo, Li and Hua, the three characters that together mean “Jasmine Flowers” are in fact the names of three generations of women in the same family in Shanghai whose lives are powerfully and irrevocably shaped by the different periods of Chinese history in which they live.   The film opens in Shanghai in the 1930s, a city of ruthless competition and unbridled hedonism. Mo (Zhang Zi Yi), the pretty young daughter of a single mother (Joan Chen) who runs a photo studio, is persuaded by a leading member of the city’s film industry to become an actress, against her mother’s wishes. Wide-eyed and innocent, she is dazzled by the world of tinsel, bright lights and glamorous parties and soon falls into the clutches of her mentor, Mr. Meng (Jiang Wen), who seduces her. She becomes pregnant, but he abandons her. She returns home to her mother, who is judgmental and unsympathetic. But Mo decides to give birth to her child, naming her daughter Li.   The scene then shifts to the 1950s, after the Communist Revolution, to a university where Li (Zhang Zi Yi) meets student leader Zou Jie (Lu Yi) who is from a workers’ family and a model of patriotism and moral rectitude. They fall in love and wish to marry, but Mo (Joan Chen), so rebellious and impetuous in her own youth, has now fallen back to her conventional class-bound values, and opposes the marriage on social grounds. Li eventually prevails and they do marry, and Zou Jie’s mother says“ we warmly welcome this girl from a bourgeois home courageous enough to marry into our proletarian family.” But with the best will in the world, Li cannot adjust to living in the cramped and basic quarters of her in-laws and the couple decides to move in with Mo, who continues to hanker after the dream-like film world of 30s Shanghai. The social and class tensions continue to take their toll on Li, and after she has a miscarriage she begins to despair of her marriage with Zou. They decide to adopt a girl whom they name Hua. Subsequently, a series of tragic events ruin her life and marriage, leaving Hua to be raised by her grandmother Mo (Joan Chen).   We next see Hua (Zhang Zi Yi) as a young woman in love with a country boy called Xiao Du (Liu Hua) whom she met during a period of rural re-education for city youths. She invites him home to dinner with her grandmother in Shanghai before he leaves for university in Lanzhou. Grandma Mo, true to form, treats him with condescension, and counsels Hua against things going any further with this unsuitable young man. But the relationship develops and they get married. He later meets someone else and seeks a divorce, but she has already conceived a child. Strong-willed and undeterred, Hua has the child and decides to forge her own destiny. The film ends in the more prosperous Shanghai of the 1980s with a scene that hints at her hard-won independence.   Joan Chen’s versatility makes her convincing as both mother and grandmother, and Zhang Zi Yi bursts with youthful energy and beauty as the younger woman.                                                                                                                                     Jeffrey Tao Return to Home