A Classic Hong Kong Movie Night:
Where Family Bond, Cantonese Learning and Mahjong Wonders Unite
Typically, I'm not a big fan of older movies; they usually aren't quite to my taste. However, I came across a film called "Mahjong Heroes" from the year 1981 while browsing through Netflix on one random day.
So, I figured it could be an interesting watch, especially considering my young son, Henry, could join in on the viewing experience. because he developed a fondness for the game of Mahjong during the initial Covid lockdown in our city.
Since then, he has been thoroughly enjoying the game. As it turned out, watching the movie ended up being quite a delightful experience! It brought a lot of fun and joy to both of us, creating a pleasant change of pace in our routine.
For me, personally, seeing the youthful appearances of those Hong Kong stars was a pleasantly nostalgic experience. It was almost surreal to see these actors, who have now either passed away or aged significantly, in their prime.
The movie started off with an international Mahjong tournament, an event that managed to captivate all three of us. It depicted several advanced techniques of playing the game, including a blindfolded version. In this unique mode of play, none of the players were permitted to look at their own Mahjong hand, let alone anyone else's!
While none of us at home could really picture ourselves playing the game in such a challenging way, it was fun to see Henry's inquisitive questions and comments about these special playing methods. His curiosity and enthusiasm added an extra layer of enjoyment to our movie night.
When I first mentioned the blind game as a teaser before starting the movie, Henry's immediate response (in Cantonese to me) was like, "Not even viewing one's own mahjong hand during the match? How is that possible?"
Eventually, the actual blind game scene opened his eyes! I greatly appreciate having Netflix at home and what it offers in terms of audio and subtitle combinations for my multilingual family. For this Hong Kong movie from 1981 on my Canadian Netflix account, Cantonese was the only option for audio. But for subtitles, there were simplified Chinese characters, traditional Chinese characters, English, Spanish, and even German available!
So, depending on your children's Chinese skill level, your own Chinese skill level, and your family's language learning goal, you can watch this Cantonese movie in different language settings:
1. Totally without subtitles; with English subtitles (this is what I did because we were watching it with my anglophone husband).
2. With traditional Chinese subtitles (what I would have done if only my son and I were watching).
3. With subtitles in any other available language.
This is one great advantage of intelligent movie streaming platforms for families who are at different skill levels and have different language learning goals.
If you are contemplating the idea of watching this film with your children, it's important to understand that the content may not be suitable for their age group.
Even though the film had its first screening in the 1980s, it only recently came to my attention. Because of concerns about whether it would be appropriate for a younger audience, I decided to watch the movie myself before determining if it was suitable for my son.
The goal was to assess whether the film's content was appropriate for him to watch in its entirety. However, after watching the first half-hour of the film, I concluded that it would be best for my son to stop watching at that point.
Instead of allowing him to continue, I chose to restrict his viewing to the first 25 minutes.
The part of the film I was comfortable with him watching involved a dispute arising from a mahjong match and the subsequent international competition that ensues.
However, the plot of the film takes a sudden, unexpected turn after this tournament. The story delves into the darker side of traditional mahjong societies in Hong Kong.
This part of the film includes elements of the triads, including scenes featuring violence. After some thoughts, I decided that exposing my son to such graphic content would not be appropriate.
To conclude, the takeaway of this accidental old movie discovery was: the awareness of some alternative (and sophisticated!) ways of playing mahjong for everyone in my household; more Cantonese knowledge for my son around the mahjong topic; a bit more Hong Kong heritage exposures for him; a bit of family bonding; an enjoyable remembering of classic Hong Kong actors for me.
If you or your children love playing mahjong and your household has Netflix, I strongly recommend checking out “Mahjong Heroes"! And don’t forget to screen the content first if you plan to view it with very young ones.
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