"A Thousand Years of Good Prayers": father, daughter, strangers

A fish-out-of-water movie that main-

tains a delicate sense of mystery most of the time, Wayne Wang's "A Thousand Years of Good Prayers" lacks only a strong finish.

It's set in Spokane, where a courtly Chinese widower, Mr. Chi (Henry O), has moved from Beijing to visit with his divorced daughter, Yilan (Faye Yu). The daughter is silent much of the time, and her father, who hasn't seen her in 12 years, takes this as proof that she's unhappy.

He goes through her drawers, takes over cooking chores and insists she eat more and spend more time reading the newspapers she buys. He also wants to know why she couldn't get along with her husband. She revolts like a child, staying out all night and lying about her whereabouts.

Things deteriorate so rapidly that you can't help wondering if they're involved in something more than a father-daughter spat. Both were scarred by the Cultural Revolution, and she's been seen with a Russian immigrant. An ex-CIA employee manages her apartment building and provides bitter advice ("our kids turn around and bite us").

It's essentially a two-character drama, though Mr. Chi briefly befriends an unemployed sunbather, then spends more time with an Iranian immigrant who manages to communicate with him in spite of language hurdles. He also holds his own with a couple of Mormon elders who arrive at the front door.

After building up to a moment when suddenly everything is explained, the pace slows and the narrative weakens. The actors do a sometimes remarkable job of dealing with the tentative nature of the relationships (the title refers to the eons it can take for two people to establish trust and affection); their restraint and professionalism are almost enough to carry the characters through the finale.

Director Wayne Wang ("The Joy Luck Club") does a particularly fine job in the early scenes of capturing the old man's fascination with signs and spellings at malls, gas stations and the airport where he meets Yilan.

"You don't have to read everything," chides his daughter. He's alive to these signals, and his perceptions become the focus of scenes filmed at Gonzaga University and other Northwest locations. Even the muffled sound of a vacuum cleaner becomes briefly poetic when Wang allows us to "hear" it through Mr. Chi's ears.

John Hartl: johnhartl@yahoo.com