A little girl asks: "Are the Buddha and Jesus friends?" There are a hundred possible answers to that question, but to the
girl who asked it, the obvious choice is "yes." Why wouldn't they be? They're both so big on being a good neighbor and doing good deeds. In the girl's imagination, they hang out every night in her kitchen and shoot the breeze. Sometimes they even dance. This is "Eve & the Fire Horse," a remarkably good-natured and gentle film about spirituality's place in a family's life. It was written and directed by Julia Kwan, who drew on her own experiences growing up in Canada in the 1970s and seeing Western and Eastern ideas blend together. The Engs are a traditional multi-generational Chinese family in Vancouver. Grandmother (Ping Sun Wong) lived in China for most of her life and maintains a number of Buddhist traditions and superstitions, including pouring tea for the gods every morning, though they never seem to be thirsty. Her son Frank (Lester Chit-Man Chan) is a good husband and father but a luckless fellow in his business dealings. Frank's wife May Lin (Vivian Wu) cuts down an apple tree -- which is said to be bad luck -- and soon thereafter suffers a miscarriage and becomes bedridden.
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