''Meditation Park'' is a 2017 Canadian

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. Drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular super-g ...

directed by

Mina Shum Mina Shum (born 1966) is an independent Canadian filmmaker. She is a writer and director of award-winning feature films, numerous shorts and has created site specific installations and theatre. Her features, ''Double Happiness (film), Double Ha ...

. The film opened the 2017

Vancouver International Film Festival The Vancouver International Film Festival (VIFF) is an annual film festival held in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, for two weeks in late September and early October. The festival is operated by the Greater Vancouver International Film Fest ...

and was screened in the Contemporary World Cinema section at the

2017 Toronto International Film Festival The 42nd annual Toronto International Film Festival was held from 7 to 17 September 2017. There were fourteen programmes, with the Vanguard and City to City programmes both being retired from previous years, with the total number of films down b ...

. Following in the footsteps of her previous work like Double Happiness, ''Meditation Park'' highlights director Shum's

Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of va ...

ancestry. Notably, the film highlights stars

Sandra Oh Sandra Miju Oh (born July 20, 1971) is a Canadian–American actress. She is best known for her starring roles as Rita Wu on the HBO comedy '' Arliss'' (1996–2002), Dr. Cristina Yang on the ABC medical drama series ''Grey's Anatomy'' (2005� ...

and

Don McKellar Don McKellar (born August 17, 1963) is a Canadian actor, writer, playwright, and filmmaker. He was part of a loosely-affiliated group of filmmakers to emerge from Toronto known as the Toronto New Wave. He is known for directing and writing the ...

. Shum's ''Meditation Park'' questions traditional gender roles and reveals difficulties associated with the immigrant experience. It debuted to positive reviews at the

Toronto International Film Festival The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF, often stylized as tiff) is one of the largest publicly attended film festivals in the world, attracting over 480,000 people annually. Since its founding in 1976, TIFF has grown to become a permane ...

and opened in selected theatres on 9 March 2018.

Plot

Maria ( Cheng Pei Pei) is a 60-year-old grandmother who immigrated from

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...

Vancouver Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the ...

39 years ago with her husband, Bing, in order to create a better life for their children. On her husband's 65th birthday, which coincides with their move to Canada, Bing, an accountant, is called away to work with a client and returns home late. The following morning, Maria discovers an orange thong in his pants and is conflicted over what to do. Realizing that her entire life has been spent catering to her husband, Maria decides to find work to try to have some financial freedom. She quickly realizes her experience is outdated and she is unsuitable for office work. She befriends three local Cantonese women: May, Anita and Su. The women teach her to manage her own business leveraging her backyard for parking space. She also meets Gabriel, an unfriendly neighbour who undercuts the women's prices. After they are almost caught by the police, Maria and Gabriel bond as he reveals that he is lashing out at his neighbours to cover the fact that he is struggling over his wife's terminal illness. Maria begins following Bing and eventually discovers his mistress. After spying on her several times Maria is caught by the mistress who realizes who she is and cuts off her relationship with Bing. Bing falls into a severe depression and Maria feels so sorry for him she asks his mistress to take him back, which she refuses to do, recognizing she was wrong for ever starting a relationship with Bing. Maria and Bing's daughter Ava, now a mother of two children herself, begins to push her mother to reconcile with her brother Charlie, who has become estranged from his parents due to an argument with Bing. Ava reveals that Charlie is about to be married and though Maria misses her son she decides she cannot go against her husband. Charlie's fiancée Dylan also makes a surprise visit to meet Maria and Maria welcomes her though she keeps the visit a secret from Bing. Gabriel's wife dies and Maria hugs him. She is caught by Bing who forbids her to continue her friendship with him or to work. Infuriated by his controlling behaviour Maria finally decides to go to Charlie's wedding. Ava supports her decision and tells her father he can no longer control her mother or her by threatening to disown her. The day of her departure Bing tries to stop Maria from going but she reveals she knows that he had an affair and that she refuses to live her life for him alone anymore.

Cast

Cheng Pei-pei Cheng Pei-pei (born 6 January 1946) is a Chinese actress, who is considered cinema's first female action hero. She is known for her performance in the 1966 King Hu ''wuxia'' film ''Come Drink with Me'', as well as her portrayal of Jade Fox in t ...

as Maria *

as Ava *

Liane Balaban Liane Balaban (born June 24, 1980) is a Canadian actress. Her film debut was in ''New Waterford Girl'' (1999) as Agnes-Marie "Mooney" Pottie. She has since appeared in the films ''Definitely, Maybe'' (2008), ''Last Chance Harvey'' (2008), and the ...

as Dylan *

Tzi Ma Tzi Ma (;) is a Hong Kong-American actor. He is well known for his roles in television shows, such as ''The Man in the High Castle'' and '' 24'', and films, such as ''Dante's Peak'', ''Rush Hour'', ''Rush Hour 3'', ''Arrival'', '' The Farewell' ...

as Bing *

Zak Santiago Zak Santiago (born January 3, 1981) is a Canadian actor and DJ. Early life Santiago was born in Vancouver, British Columbia. Career Santiago has appeared in many television shows, including ''Young Blades'', ''Smallville'', ''Robson Arms' ...

as Jonathan *

as Gabriel * Nelson Wong as Peter * Alannah Ong as May * Lilliam Lim as Anita * Sharmaine Yeoh as Su

Funding

In addition to receiving funding from

Canadian Broadcasting Corporation The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (french: Société Radio-Canada), branded as CBC/Radio-Canada, is a Canadian public broadcaster for both radio and television. It is a federal Crown corporation that receives funding from the government. ...

(CBC) and

Telefilm Canada Telefilm Canada is a Crown corporation reporting to Canada's federal government through the Minister of Canadian Heritage. Headquartered in Montreal, Telefilm provides services to the Canadian audiovisual industry with four regional offices in V ...

, ''Meditation Park'' is also supported by the Harold Greenberg Fund. It is also noted in the credits of the film, that the production would not have been possible without support and membership of the Union of B.C Performers.

Release

Critical response

review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services (such as films, books, video games, software, hardware, and cars). This system stores the reviews and uses them for purposes such as supporting a website where users ...

website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

, the film holds an approval rating of 90% based on 10 reviews, and an average rating of 7.6/10. ''

The Globe and Mail ''The Globe and Mail'' is a Canadian newspaper printed in five cities in western and central Canada. With a weekly readership of approximately 2 million in 2015, it is Canada's most widely read newspaper on weekdays and Saturdays, although it ...

'' rated the film 3.5/4 stars. ''Meditation Park'' was also reviewed by '' The Gateway'' who criticized the comedic efforts of the film but said it was emotionally satisfying and introduced interesting perspectives of Chinese women in traditional Chinese families.

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Meditation Park 2017 films 2017 drama films Canadian drama films English-language Canadian films Films directed by Mina Shum Films scored by Andrew Lockington Films set in Vancouver Films shot in Vancouver 2010s English-language films 2010s Canadian films