Meditation Park

Directed by Mina Shum

Canada, 2017 (fiction, 94 minutes, colour, Cantonese / English)

Image: © Mongrel Media

Film Description:
"A devoted wife and mother [...] is forced to reassess her reverence for her husband after she finds another woman's undergarment in his laundry."
-- Mongrel Media (source)

Film Credits (partial):
Written by:	Dennis Foon, Mina Shum
Produced by:	Stephen Hegyes, Raymond Massey, Mina Shum, Mohamad el Masri
Principal Cast:	Don McKellar, Liane Balaban, Sandra Oh, Tzi Ma, Pei-Pei Cheng
Cinematography:	Peter Wunstorf
Film Editing:	Daria Ellerman
Music:	Andrew Lockington
Production Company:	Meditation Park Film Ltd., Side Street Post

(sources)

Notes about Meditation Park

Filmed in Vancouver.
Shown at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2017.

(sources)

Quote by the Director

"Our understanding of what a Chinese immigrant woman would be is exactly what we see at the beginning of the film [Meditation Park]. Then, it gets broken down, and so our expectations as an audience get turned on their head—and then we're off to the races. If we can identify her as a hero, then can't we all be heroes?"
-- Mina Shum (source)

Quotes about Meditation Park

"Ultimately [the story of Meditation Park] rests on an affecting and absolutely lovely performance by Cheng Pei-Pei. Known in her youth as an invincible wuxia warrior in martial arts movies like Come Drink With Me, she is just undaunted as a quiet 60-something housewife, her wondrously expressive face carrying this film and its optimistic vision of late-life renewal."
-- Alison Gillmor (source)

"[In Meditation Park, Mina] Shum deftly juggles several narrative threads, always providing enough information so that her characters register as three-dimensional. Chief among them is Sandra Oh as Maria's daughter Ava, now starting a family of her own and too distracted by that to notice that her mother is in a state."
-- Chris Knight (source)

Bibliography for Meditation Park

Articles from Newspapers, Magazines, or News Websites

Cooper, Julia. "Indie director Mina Shum's Meditation Park asks: 'Can't we all be heroes?'; A big movie about a tiny woman, Shum's new film follows a different kind of lead: A Chinese immigrant who learns her husband of 40 years has been unfaithful." Interview with Mina Shum. Globe and Mail, March 6, 2018.
Gee, Dana. "A Meditation on mid-life; Vancouver-shot film tells tale of a woman finding herself amid city's backyard parking community." Interview with Mina Shum. Vancouver Sun, March 8, 2018.
Gee, Dana. "Vancouver latecomer actor Lillian Lim shines bright in new feature Meditation Park." Vancouver Sun, March 15, 2018.
Gillmor, Alison. "Chinese-Canadian view of the dutiful wife." Review of Meditation Park. Winnipeg Free Press, March 16, 2018.
Knight, Chris. "A mid-life crisis that plays as real, droll." Review of Meditation Park. Regina Leader-Post, May 11, 2018.

Web Sites about Meditation Park

"IMDb: Meditation Park." Internet Movie Database, Inc. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6400316/reference.
"Meditation Park." Mongrel Media. http://www.mongrelmedia.com/index.php/filmlink?id=3a763427-5c83-e711-9448-0ad9f5e1f797#synopsissection. [official site]