Director Wang tells audience 'Don't fall asleep,'

SAN FRANCISCO - "I took my time making this film," Wang told the audience at the opening of the San Francisco International Film Festival. "So don't fall asleep. And if you do fall asleep, try not to yawn too loud."
"A Thousand Years of Good Prayers" opened the Asian-American film festival on Thursday and tells the story of a Beijing father visiting his divorced daughter in Spokane, Washington state.

The father, played by television veteran star Henry O, feels he needs to help her heal; she resents what she sees as interference.
Wang, who directed the Asian-themed films "The Joy Luck Club" and "Chinese Box," said when he read the short story by Yiyun Li on which the movie is based, the character of the father was one he recognized.
When his own father came from Hong Kong to visit him and his new wife in America, they had a hard time communicating, Wang said.
"He asked me questions that I didn't know how to answer like the father in the movie does, like 'When am I going to see my grandchildren?'" Wang said.
O, who has starred in such shows as "E.R." and "The West Wing" as well as movies such as "The Last Emperor," said he would never behave like his character in the film.
"I would never ask my daughter questions like that," he said. "I always asked the director 'How can I say this?' and he would say 'Be very firm.'"
At the gala party afterwards at the Asian Art museum, which houses the largest collection of Asian art in the Western world, Daniel Wu, who leads the cast in the movie "Blood Brothers," which is screening at the festival, said he thought the program was very strong this year.
"We've gone beyond complaining about Asian-American issues," he said. "What we need to do is move to the next level. Let's just be Asian-American and tell those stories."