Taiwan Synopsis
Mr. Chu is an elderly widower who teaches tai chi chuan in Beijing. He moves to America to live with his son's family, but finds the cultural adjustment difficult. Since his daughter-in-law is a white woman who does not speak Chinese, Mr. Chu's son, Alex, must mediate.
Titles With Overlapping Themes
Films and series that share thematic tags with Pushing Hands. Number on each card indicates how many keywords overlap.
Comedy + Drama in Taiwan
29 Taiwan titles in our catalog blend the Comedy and Drama genres. Below: the top-rated of them (excluding Pushing Hands itself).
Other Titles From Ang Lee Productions
The 1990s Taiwan Landscape
Catalog density by release year across the 1990s in Taiwan, 16 titles in total. Highlighted year (yellow) is when Pushing Hands premiered alongside 1 others.
Budget & Box Office Efficiency
At a 1h 45m runtime, production spent $4K per minute on screen and earned $1K per minute back.
Position in Catalog
The 29th Taiwan title from Taiwan we index (earliest catalogued entry: 1972).
Our Taiwan catalog contains 174 titles in total (149 films).
Audience Engagement
58 audience reviews — more than 81% of Taiwan films in our index.
Popularity sits at the 80th percentile among Taiwan films.
Thematic Fingerprint
Tags on Pushing Hands, grouped by how common each theme is across the full Asian catalog. Rare tags are more distinctive signals.
- intercultural relationship · 4
- chinatown · 3
- tai chi · 3
- generation gap · 2
- culture shock · 2
- american culture · 1
- new york state · 1
- family home · 1
- multigenerational · 1
- fish out of water · 8
- culture clash · 7
- martial arts · 369
Reception Benchmarks
Ranked #50 of 174 Taiwan films indexed here (71st percentile by TMDB audience score).
Rating is +0.5 points above the Taiwan average of 6.6/10.
Among Taiwan Comedy productions specifically: #14 of 50 (top 28%).
Production Details
| Primary Country | Taiwan |
|---|---|
| Original Language | Chinese |
| Spoken Languages | English, Mandarin |
| Production Companies | Ang Lee Productions, Central Motion Picture Corporation |
| Runtime | 1h 45m |
| Release Date | December 7, 1991 |
| IMDb | tt0105652 |