'The Joy Luck Club' Cast Will Reunite For A Virtual Book Club With Author Amy Tan
Bring your best dumplings and moon cakes, because The Joy Luck Club is getting back together. The cast of The Joy Luck Club is reuniting in a virtual "book club" to discuss the beloved 1989 novel with the author Amy Tan. The nonprofit organization Gold House will be hosting The Joy Luck Club reunion, which will include Lauren Tom, Ming-Na Wen, Rosalind Chao, and Tamlyn Tomita.
Variety reports that Gold House will be hosting The Joy Luck Club virtual reunion to discuss the 1989 novel by Amy Tan, which would be adapted into the beloved 1993 movie. The Joy Luck Club cast members Lauren Tom, Ming-Na Wen, Rosalind Chao, and Tamlyn Tomita will all get back together to talk about the book with Tan and moderators Aileen Lee and executive producer Janet Yang.
"'The Joy Luck Club' — both the book and movie — are gifts that keep on giving," Yang told Variety. "Gold House's choice of this title to launch its book event to better connect us amidst physical separation gives me the opportunity to share the beautiful spirits of my Asian sisters with the world."
Gold House, a nonprofit collective of "diverse leaders dedicated to forging stronger relationships that empower the Asian community," holds a live discussion with an Asian-centric book each month, and The Joy Luck Club is the latest one. The choice feels fitting in a time when Asian representation on screen has been improving ever since the release of 2018's Crazy Rich Asians — the first major Hollywood film to feature an all-Asian cast since, fittingly, The Joy Luck Club. The Joy Luck Club earned acclaim when it hit theaters in 1993 but it wasn't the watershed moment for Asian-American representation onscreen that many had hoped it would be.
Directed by Wayne Wang, The Joy Luck Club was a warm (and slightly sentimental) family drama about two generations of Chinese women — immigrant mothers and their daughters — who struggle to connect in modern-day San Francisco. It was nothing groundbreaking, but it was the first mainstream Hollywood film to feature a largely Asian-American cast. Since the film's release, Ming-Na Wen would go on to become a Disney Legend as the voice of Mulan in the Disney animated film and carved out a career in genre television with Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and The Mandalorian, while other cast members like Tom, Chao, and Tomita would continue steady careers on TV.
The virtual discussion will take place on June 9 at 6 p.m. PST. Those interested can RSVP at Facebook.com/GoldHouse/event.