Final Recipe
Director: Gina Kim
Year: 2013
Rating: 6.0
Here is another foodie
film. Last week I watched the Bollywood film Cheeni Kum that mixed food and
romance; this time it is food and family. One about Indian food, this one
about Chinese food. They both make you want to call up delivery for a rush
order. I am not really into eating different types of foods as much as some
friends - and I can't cook a lick - but I do enjoy watching films about cooking.
There is always a lot of happiness around them - in the cooking and the savoring
of food. Some are flashy like the Hong Kong films, others more down to earth.
This one is fairly realistic in terms of the cooking. The plot? Well, maybe
not so much. Lots of scenes of cooking, steam rising, pans swishing the food
around, tasting - but it is the story surrounding it that matters. It is
as sentimental as a box of Kleenex. I was a little slow at seeing the
twist coming but I imagine most people will figure it out long before I did.
But that is why you might need the Kleenex. Depending on your susceptibility
to manipulated sentiment. Family is always my weak point.
It begins in Singapore where an elderly
man (Tseng Chang) runs one of those small restaurants with a few tables and
plastic chairs. He is an ornery old bastard who yells at customers if they
complain about the food. Because of that and changes to Singapore, his business
is going broke and he is long overdue on rent. He only has a short time to
pay it and ends up in the hospital with stress. He has a grandson Yihan (Henry
Lau) who has apprenticed with the old man for years and before that when
very young with his father before he disappeared. He loves cooking; the grandfather
wants him to go to college to study. Yihan decides to go to Shanghai to enter
a contest for $1 million dollars to save the restaurant.
It is a big TV show produced by Mrs. Lee
- Michelle Yeoh being dubbed into Mandarin. She is great in this otherwise.
He becomes one of the contestants as they go through rounds of competition
and you should be able to guess how that goes. Lots of bright visuals of
yummy looking food. One lovely moment is when Mrs. Lee tastes a quick dish
of pork that he throws together for his friends. She takes one bite and she
lights up as if enlightened. The winner of the competition has to take on
the Master to win the prize. He is played by Chin Han - not the old star
Chin Han - he and Michelle worked together on the TV show American Born Chinese
and Marco Polo. It is just a nice cooking film up to this point and then
the sentiment is piled on with a cement truck. And it shouldn't work but
it sort of does. Pleasant comfort food with nice performances all around.
Lau is a very likable actor - from Canada but fluent in English, Korean and
Mandarin. He is part of a musical group called Super Junior-m which means
nothing to me but perhaps it does to others. It is helmed and written by
Korean director Gina Kim. If you like cooking or eating Chinese food, you
should enjoy this.
