Eating dinner with Chu
I loved this movie. Eat Drink Man Woman is a Chinese film with subtitles, but don't let that scare you off. Directed by Ang Lee, the film tells the story of Chu, a senior chef who has discovered that his tastebuds are starting to fail him. Chu has three daughters, all of whom still live with him. (Their mother passed away when they were growing up.) The eldest is a schoolteacher and is widely considered to be an old maid. Everyone expects her to never marry and spend her life taking care of her father. The middle child is a high-powered executive at an airline company. She's already put down money on her own apartment, and an offer to become a vice-president at her company may move her away even farther - to Amsterdam. The youngest daughter works at a fast food joint.
Chu still expects all his daughters to arrive at home in time for Sunday dinner each week, an elaborate affair that he spends all day preparing for. The film allows us to sit in on Chu's family dinners, the venue of choice for the characters to make big announcements. Over the course of the family dinners, we watch as each of the daughters, and Chu himself, find their way in the world and make new lives for themselves.
The most notable part of this film is watching Chu cook. The camera zooms in on intricate chopping, slicing, arranging, frying, and more. As you watch, you realize that Chinese cooking (and any cooking done with such precision) is truly an art. He slices vegetables with razor-like deft. He creates aesthetic towers of vegetables and proteins. He sets a gorgeous table that would feed an army. It is amazing to see. (And it will make you long for good Chinese food. Don't watch on an empty stomach.) In this sense, the film reminded me of both Like Water for Chocolate and Babette's Feast. In some scenes, the food is the real star.
The plot itself is also good, and I TOTALLY did not see the end coming. In this way, the food really becomes a metaphor in the story - it is the note of something unexpected that provides intrigue to the entire dish.
Chu still expects all his daughters to arrive at home in time for Sunday dinner each week, an elaborate affair that he spends all day preparing for. The film allows us to sit in on Chu's family dinners, the venue of choice for the characters to make big announcements. Over the course of the family dinners, we watch as each of the daughters, and Chu himself, find their way in the world and make new lives for themselves.
The most notable part of this film is watching Chu cook. The camera zooms in on intricate chopping, slicing, arranging, frying, and more. As you watch, you realize that Chinese cooking (and any cooking done with such precision) is truly an art. He slices vegetables with razor-like deft. He creates aesthetic towers of vegetables and proteins. He sets a gorgeous table that would feed an army. It is amazing to see. (And it will make you long for good Chinese food. Don't watch on an empty stomach.) In this sense, the film reminded me of both Like Water for Chocolate and Babette's Feast. In some scenes, the food is the real star.
The plot itself is also good, and I TOTALLY did not see the end coming. In this way, the food really becomes a metaphor in the story - it is the note of something unexpected that provides intrigue to the entire dish.
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