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Film Review: Eat Drink Man Woman

Films for foodies
Eat Drink Man Woman is the story of a complicated family living complicated lives - which all revolves around food.

Writer/Director:Ang Lee
Country: Taiwan
Cuisine: Chinese
Film Rating 9/10
Foodie Rating 10/10

The only problem with this foodophile classic is its title: it should be Eat Drink Man Women as the relationships centre on protagonist Chu (Sihung Lung), his three daughters as well as his friend, her mother and her daughter. Chu is a former chef and the story revolves around the women who define his life following his retirement and widowhood examining their relations with him and each other, all within the context of a great deal of amazing food. His daughters have complicated lives but they retain a sense of duty to their father, so every week the family gather for an auspicious Sunday feast where Chu creates the most delicious meals as they have to discuss their lives, their prospects and their woes. Jia-Chien (Chien-Lien Wu), despite her business acumen and success as an airline manager, always wanted to develop her own cooking abilities. Jia-Jen (Kuei-Mei Yang) has had relationship issues of her own and has converted to Christianity while the youngest sister Jia-Ning (Yu-Wen Wang) is still a student, seeking qualifications and dealing with both friends and boyfriends as they come and go. And then there’s Chu’s friendship with Liang Jin-Rong (Sylvia Chang). Shocked that her daughter goes to school with less than top-quality food in her lunchbox, he instigates a secret arrangement with the young girl whereby he replaces her lunchbox with one filled with his own exquisite concoctions, eating the original food so as not to waste the somewhat inferior cooking. This creates a lot of cultural cross-generation food empathy as these exceptional lunches pique the interest and enthusiasm of her classmates who later provide Chu with orders for particular dishes from his extensive repertoire.

When watching Eat Drink Man Woman it is advisable to do so on a full stomach. The opening sequence alone will have you salivating at the delicious dishes on offer as Chu prepares Sunday lunch for his daughters. This is not a standard meal that’s simply been thrown together, the care and attention he puts into each and every dish reflects his way of showing his daughters how much he cares for them; the finished feast far too much for the family to consume. His daughters have grown up to be critical of his culinary skills, noting that he may not have followed the recipe precisely and are open in their feedback, certain of their judgement in his abilities. But his culinary expertise is his way of maintaining the family within a home where food is the centre of everything. The Sunday lunch also gives the whole family the opportunity to make announcements about their lives and their plans for the future, including the occasional bombshell. The dinner table provides the focal point for family interactions. Director Lee then cuts to specific scenes that delve into the individual stories of this complicated family.

Chu’s is a practical kitchen – a chef’s kitchen: white tiled, with a seriously impressive array of knives, cooking implements and vessels, all of which have been well used over the years. Much of his food is so fresh some of it is still alive – fish writhing in pots – just moments before preparation begins. Chu is not squeamish – he knows exactly where his food comes from and how to prepare it. Sizzle, steam, fizz, fry, boil – all the techniques of classic Chinese cookery are on show. The dishes are many and varied – the portions far too large for the family of four to devour – but every Sunday lunch is a sumptuous feast with plenty of leftovers for the week ahead.

Eat Drink Man Woman places food as a central part of this story of a complicated family living complicated lives. As anyone who has been overfed by a kindly relative knows, the over-riding message from Eat Drink Man Woman is that, no matter how complex and difficult life can be, food is not simply nourishment, it represents love.

You can buy the DVD (or the NTSC version) or the Ang Lee box set trilogy which also contains more of his foodie films, The Wedding Banquet and Pushing Hands.

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