In 1993, the novel was adapted into a feature film directed by Wayne Wang and starring Ming-Na Wen, Lauren Tom, Tamlyn Tomita, France Nguyen, Rosalind Chao, Kieu Chinh, Tsai Chin, Lisa Lu, and Vivian Wu.

The Joy Luck Club consists of sixteen interlocking stories about the lives of four Chinese immigrant mothers and their four American-born daughters.

June relates the story of how her mother Suyuan was the wife of an officer in the Kuomintang during World War II and how she was forced to flee from her home in Kweilin and abandon her twin daughters.

This experience emotionally traumatizes her, and she is dropped at the shore, and wanders into an outdoor performance featuring the Moon Lady, said to grant wishes.

Lena relates the stories her mother told her when she was younger (her great grandfather sentenced a beggar to die in the worst possible manner).

She believes that her mother will still have absolute power over her and will object to her forthcoming marriage to Rich, after she did the same to her previous husband, Marvin Chen, with whom she has a daughter, Shoshana.

The final section of the novel, the title of which refers to the Chinese goddess Xi Wangmu, returns to the viewpoints of the mothers as adults dealing with difficult choices.

Ying-Ying St. Clair reveals how her first husband, a womanizer, abandoned her and how she married an American man she did not love after relinquishing her sense of control in her life.

Lindo Jong relates how she arrived in San Francisco and met An-Mei Hsu when they both worked at a fortune-cookie factory, which eventually gave her the means to plant the idea of marriage in her boyfriend's head.

As Suyuan dies before the novel begins, her history is told by Jing-mei, based on her knowledge of her mother's stories, anecdotes from her father, and what the other members of the Joy Luck Club tell her.

An-Mei is raised by her grandparents and other relatives during her early years in Ningbo after her widowed mother shocks the family by becoming a concubine to a middle-aged wealthy man after her first husband's death.

Second Wife also tried to win over An-mei upon her arrival in Wu-Tsing's mansion, giving her a necklace made of "pearls" that her mother later revealed were actually glass beads, by crushing one with her teacup.

Wu-Tsing is a highly superstitious man, and Second Wife takes advantage of this weakness by making false suicide attempts and threatening to haunt him as a ghost if he does not let her have her way.

An-Mei takes her younger brother's arm and demands that Wu Tsing honor them and her mother or face great consequences.

When Lindo was only twelve, she was forced to move in with a neighbor's young son, Huang Tyan Yu, through the machinations of the village matchmaker.

She restricted most of Lindo's daily activities, eventually ordering her to remain on bed rest until she could conceive and deliver a child.

She managed to convince her in-laws that Huang Tyan Yu was actually fated to marry another girl who was already pregnant with his "spiritual child", and that her own marriage to him would only bring bad luck to the family.

She married a Chinese American man named Tin Jong and has three children: sons Winston and Vincent, and daughter Waverly.

Lindo experiences regret over losing some of her Chinese identity by living so long in America (she is treated like a tourist on a visit to China); however, she expresses concern that Waverly's American upbringing has formed a barrier between them.

After ten years, she moves to Shanghai and works in a clothing store, where she meets an American man named Clifford St. Clair.

He courts her for four years, and she agrees to marry him after learning that Lin Xiao had died, which she takes as the proper sign to move on.

Ying-Ying is horrified when she realises that Lena, a Tiger like herself, has inherited or emulated her passive behaviors and trapped herself in a loveless marriage with a controlling husband.

When Ted comes for the divorce papers, Rose finds her voice and tells him that he can't just throw her out of his life, comparing herself to his garden, once so beloved, now unkempt and full of weeds.

When Waverly believes that Lindo will object to her engagement to Rich after a failed dinner party, she discovers her mother had already accepted it.

"[4] Harold's act of dictatorship over Lena could be the reason for her created self-doubt: "in…patriarchy, men possess the highest status... so that women's position is subordinate to them.

When Ying-Ying breaks a leg from a table belonging to Harold, Lena finally admitted she's unhappy in her marriage including how frustrated she is with him for taking credit for her business and design ideas.

While The Joy Luck Club earned high praise, it also received criticism for perpetuating racist stereotypes about Asian Americans.

[8] He also noted that it lacks authenticity for its fabricated Chinese folk tales that depict "Confucian culture as seen through the interchangeable Chinese/Japanese/Korean/Vietnamese mix (depending on which is the yellow enemy of the moment) of Hollywood.

"[11] Novelist Nancy Willard, in a somewhat positive critique, said that "Amy Tan's special accomplishment in this novel is not her ability to show us how mothers and daughters hurt each other, but how they love and ultimately forgive each other.

"[12] The act of losing individuality continues through multiple generations because the mothers in Tan's story "never offer concrete anecdotes to teach [their daughters]" about their feelings and their pasts.