A look inside Hollywood and the movies : LITERATI TOO : A New Take on Chinatown

“ Hu le !”

In the tile game mah-jongg, the Mandarin expression hu le --meaning “I have the arrangement”--is said when the winning hand is about to be played.

The same also might be said for Disney’s Hollywood Pictures, which sources say is about to play its own hand in adapting Amy Tan’s best-selling book “The Joy Luck Club” to the screen. The book, a surprise critical and commercial success in 1989, is a tale of interlocking stories about four elderly Chinese women--told while sitting around playing mah-jongg--and those of their American-born daughters.

Tan will co-write the adaptation with Oscar-winning screenwriter Ron Bass (“Rain Man”). Oliver Stone will executive produce. But what may be viewed as the best news in Chinese-American circles is that Wayne Wang (“Dim Sum,” “Chan Is Missing”) is on tap to direct.

One would think Tan’s complex novel would be nearly impossible to make into a movie.

But another writer has already accepted the challenge. Playwright Susan Kim’s stage version will be performed at the Shanghai People’s Art Theater this fall.