Pushing Hands (Chinese: 推手; pinyin: Tuī Shǒu) is a 1991 comedy-drama film directed by Taiwanese filmmaker Ang Lee, his feature directorial debut.

The film shows the contrast between traditional Chinese ideas of Confucian relationships within a family and the much more informal Western emphasis on the individual.

Together with Ang Lee's two following films, The Wedding Banquet (1993) and Eat Drink Man Woman (1994), it forms his "Father Knows Best" trilogy, each of which deals with conflicts between an older and more traditional generation and their children as they confront a world of change.

The story begins with the Chinese tai chi master, Chu, immigrating to the United States to live with his son, Alex, and his family.

"Pushing Hands" thereby alludes to the process of adaptation to culture shock felt by a traditional teacher in moving to the United States.

Taiwanese-born filmmaker Ang Lee had graduated from New York University Tisch School of the Arts in 1984, but had failed to find career opportunities since, working almost full-time as a house-father.

During the intermediate six years, he became interested in martial arts, specifically tai chi, after reading the wuxia novel Jianghu qixia zhuan (The Story of an Extraordinary Gallant Errant).

He would become one of Lee's frequent collaborators, subsequently starring in The Wedding Banquet, Eat Drink Man Woman (where he also played a character named Chu), and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

[5] On the day of the shooting, the crew set up a table and incense, and held a gong ceremony, a practice Lee would continue into his future projects.

[6][7][8] Donald Lyons wrote that Lee's filming style displayed "a mastery of the visual dynamics of interior spaces and their psychic pressures.