He soon becomes friends with an elderly woman from Iran whom he meets on daily visits to a park. Shi as he copes with generational differences. Rather than centering on clichéd cultural conflicts, the movie focuses on Mr. Shi cooks extravagant meals and is continually trying to get his daughter to talk about what went wrong with her marriage and what plans she has for the future. Nor is he the stereotypical Asian father who comes from a patriarchal society and seldom cooks his own food. The man the audience meets is not the austere, reserved father who never talked about family problems that Yilan remembers from her childhood. In fact, the only unkind words come from his own daughter. Never is he met with a racist remark or uncharitable gesture. Shi, fresh off the airplane, steps into a world unaffected by 9/11, where everyone he meets is friendly, kind, and eager to make conversation with a foreigner. She resents his imposition and practice of the Chinese traditions that she has kept out of her apartment. But Yilan, played by Feihong Yu, chafes under her father’s constant gaze. Shi (played by Henry O), who moves to America to help his grown daughter, Yilan, cope with a recent divorce. “A Thousand Years of Good Prayers” follows a Chinese father, Mr. And while Wang’s film, which quietly examines a strained father-daughter relationship, is no plot-thriller, it does lull the audience into a peaceful state with its calming, metrical scenes and restrained, spare dialogue. The scene’s sparse style illuminates the beauty and bleakness of everyday life. In the opening scene of director Wayne Wang’s new film “A Thousand Years of Good Prayers,” suitcase after suitcase slides slowly down an airport conveyer belt in a methodical, mundane rhythm.

Word for a thousand years