Do you remember the play Pushing Hands?

That's what the name pusher means. Pushing hands is a traditional Tai Chi event, which emphasizes the balance between opposing forces. If you find a balance, you can last; If you lose, you lose. Pushing hands can be regarded as a kind of health-keeping exercise to gain inner peace, and it can also be regarded as a kind of martial arts kung fu, which bursts into great power when necessary. Ang Lee cleverly injected this metaphor into his works. On the one hand, Tai Chi masters with stunts have created many attractions for this film with oriental elements. Especially for American audiences, the story of the mysterious old man fighting with fifteen new york policemen in China City is full of selling points. On the other hand, the old father who is proficient in pushing hands symbolizes a traditional mode of thinking.

When faced with various cultural conflicts, China people always seem to want to solve this confrontation in a Confucian way, which is similar to pushing hands with Tai Chi. Weigh and internalize external resistance and conflict with the power of combining rigidity with softness, and explore the point of mastering the balance of advance and retreat. However, this is often not the case. Just like the end of a movie, balance can always be found in pushing projects. After all, the victorious old father can't find a balance point to solve contradictions in real life. Although foreign daughter-in-law and old father understand each other, the contradiction of coexistence is irresistible. Finally, on behalf of the traditional conservative oriental thought, he made a compromise, and his old father left home and moved to Chinatown alone. Faced with the dilemma between the past and the future, the son chose the future. This choice is both sad and understandable; It is reflective, but at the same time it is fruitless.