God of Cookery
Director: Stephen Chow Sing Chi (周星馳)
Country: Hong Kong
Cuisine: Chinese / Cantonese
Film Rating 6/10
Foodie Rating 5/10
The world of food is tough in more ways than one. The bourgeois rich insist on the distinctive, the unique and the best and are willing to pay for it, whilst the poor survive on what they can get. Then there is celebrity and publicity with competitions which ensure that skilled chefs become either rich or rejected largely because of trends and interpretations of the quality of the food, style, taste or even the performance of its chef. Self-declared God of Cookery (Stephen Chow) is extravagant, talented and very rich (partly the result of a dubious business empire which aggrandises his personality and food), able to detect the slightest of alterations in the quality of dishes created, savage in his criticisms (although accurate in detail) and a proficient user of culinary implements as he wields his chopper with remarkable ability. Martial arts meet culinary arts. Bull Tong (Vincent Kok) is his rival and a televised competition chaired by The Princess of Taste (Nancy Sit) leads to the vivacious cooking deity rejected to the streets where his need to make good food in a manner that satisfies his distinctive palate is put to the test. He comes across street-food maker Turkey (Karen Mok) who has surprising skills with her unique dishes (at a reasonable price) of pissing shrimp and beef balls. (You read that right!) With rival businesses, gangland trouble and a desire to return to the limelight with a restored reputation God of Cookery joins up with Turkey to make the ultimate in culinary perfection, the pissing beef ball.
The world of Stephen Chow Sing Chi (周星馳) is one that is filled with comedy (from slapstick, hilarious, offensive, inappropriate or just genius) but also physical prowess that mixes martial arts with comedy in a way that is distinctly different than the Buster Keaton style stunts of Jackie Chan. And so we have football in Shaolin Soccer (probably his best known film outside Hong Kong along with Kung-Fu Hustle) and also a lot of social commentary that addresses class and community in an often offensive manner which becomes funny when you understand the context and tone in which it is delivered. But here The God of Cookery does tackle social issues, media manipulation, business riches impeding the populace and criminal fraternities being comparable in their own way and yet – it’s a foodie film. With martial arts. Call it Kung-Food if you will. So here we have chopping and mincing as swift and accurate as you can imagine, ingredients juggled into place, eggs cracked open and whisked with speed and dexterity, meatballs filled with alarming accuracy. Oh, and deadly chopsticks as well as woks and cooking implements of all varieties that add to the mayhem. Sometimes the perpetrators of evil are served up as if they were cooked dishes themselves. The contrast between posh restaurants and street food are depicted in their clientele, their production and, of course, their means of depicting kung-food mayhem and gastronomic expertise. The similarities of the elite and the normal are shown to be different in how society reacts to them but in the world of The God of Cookery this is irrelevant as it focuses on the joy of great food, whatever the background of its creator. Just don’t forget to remove the excrement from the entrails dishes. Good advice there. May not be to everyone’s taste (unlike the pissing beef balls, of course) but still kung-food madness with socially underlined messaging that packs a punch – often between preparing ingredients.
