Pushing Hands

Pushing Hands (推手, 1991) is Ang Lee's debut feature — a Taiwanese-American drama with a quiet comic edge that you can watch online on iFILM. Retired tai chi master Mr. Chu leaves Beijing to move in with his son Alex's family in New York. His daughter-in-law is American and speaks no Chinese. He speaks no English. They share a house and eat breakfast three feet apart without exchanging a word.

Lang Xiong plays Mr. Chu with a stillness that makes the character's displacement feel genuine rather than sentimental. Alex is caught in the middle, translating not just language but two entirely different ideas of what family owes each other. Lee made this before The Wedding Banquet and Eat Drink Man Woman, but the same instinct is already here: find the tension inside ordinary life and let it breathe. Stream Pushing Hands (1991) on iFILM.