The Chinese Feast
Director: Tsui Hark
Year: 1995
Rating: 8.5
A wonderful, warm
well paced comedy with great performances from Leslie Cheung and Anita Yuen
and everyone else. The humor of this film is built on the situation and the
characters more so than the usual HK slapstick type comedy - though the silly
large fish scene put me in stitches and that was not sophisticated comedy
by any means. It's a simple story about a chef having to
win a cook off or lose his restaurant. Leslie is a lowly triad trying to go
straight and Anita is the wacky but adorable daughter of the chef and both
pitch in to help. A drunken ex-master
chef (Kenny Bee) comes back to perhaps save the day. Lots of plot clichés,
but done with a clever funny twist. The cooking contest scenes are as exciting
and brilliantly choreographed as a John Woo shoot-out and the ending has
an almost Rockyesque feeling to it.
Reviewed by YTSL
This visually scrumptious movie does feature
a whole host of shots of delicious-looking -- even if sometimes made from
really gross-sounding (e.g., bear paw, elephant trunk) ingredients -- food
being prepared, cooked, displayed and tasted. Many of its scenes do
take place in kitchens and restaurants. And its heroes are chefs (including
those portrayed by Law Kar Ying, Kenny Bee, Chiu Man Cheuk) and wanna-be chefs
(played by Leslie Cheung and Anita Yuen). But one does not have to
be a foodie to enjoy it.
What does help though is a sense of humor (unlike,
say, "Eat, Drink, Man, Woman" or "Babette's Feast", this Tsui Hark-directed
production is very definitely primarily a comedy). IMHO, it is particularly
integral to have an appreciation of the fast and furious, athletic yet graceful,
kind of skilled action movements that have come to characterize many a Hong
Kong movie for quite a few people.
Watching A CHINESE FEAST's master chefs slicing
and dicing and observing their demeanor, one cannot help but think of them
as akin to martial arts sifu (It cannot be entirely coincidental that Xiong
Xin Xin was as adept at playing a kung fu fighter in "Once Upon a Time in
China III" as he is portraying a chef in this film). Looking at the
tasks and tests given to the apprentice chef played by Leslie Cheung by Lau
Kar Ying's master chef character, one surely is made to think of the training
of a Shaolin Temple disciple or trainee of a drunken as well as sober kung
fu teacher.
To be sure, this movie most definitely provides
a feast for the eyes. However, it would be well to not be lulled into
thinking that this movie is without depth of meaning. Yes, this is a
zanily exuberant "feel good" movie but there is much symbolism on view and
to analyze: Witness the yin and yang pattern on a particular dish that is
prominently displayed when the credits roll at the beginning of the film.
Never are these elements, and binary oppositions, more apparent than at the
climactic Qing-Hang Feast contest itself when one side represents communal
effort (involving Chinese Mainlanders in tandem with Hong Kongers, a woman
along with men, and two generations including a father and daughter), "heat"
and tradition (for the most part) while the other is powered by an egoistic
individual, places an onus on "ice" and consciously employs untraditional
-- un-Chinese -- practices.
More than by the way: Of course, we know who and what will ultimately prevail...but
the beauty of this production is that there really are plot twists and ideational
innovations pretty much up until the end.
My rating for this film: 9.
