Eat Drink Man Woman (1994)

"Eat, drink, man, woman, food and sex-basic human desires"

Eat Drink Man Woman is a film by Ang Lee that I’ve watched before and wanted to revisit. I liked it even better this time than I did the first, maybe it is an acquired taste. Food, family, love, loss, and secrets made for a tasty feast to sit down to.

Mr. Chu is a widowed chef who has lost his sense of taste. He has three daughters who live with him. Each lives their lives separately except for when they sit down to the elaborate Sunday meals he prepares. One by one they face challenges, and find new love or new paths to take.

The food preparation was sumptuous. Chicken, pork, fish, a variety of seafood, hot pot, all made not only to taste with the mouth but with the eyes as well. No one would have to cook for a week with the Sunday dinners the father served. The daughters didn’t eat that much and there were enormous quantities of food leftover. Much of the food was also shared with the eldest daughter’s divorced friend and child. Mr. Chu would also pack culinary delights for the child to take to school for her lunches making her very popular with her classmates. The middle daughter loved to cook like her father, but had been banished from the restaurant kitchen so that she would find a proper job. While she excelled at her position with an airline, her passion was making the dishes she’d seen her father so thoughtfully prepare.

Everyone cared about the other yet had lost the capacity to communicate freely. Only when things began to be shaken up and the status quo was flipped over and scattered did father and daughters begin to reach out again. Sometimes a pot can be simmering quietly on the stove and is only noticed when it boils over. The dish isn’t ruined if someone attends to it lovingly. Everyone in the Chu family had to discover what made them happy, what helped them be who they wanted to be. Sometimes that exploration led to loss before it led to gain. If you enjoy watching elaborate meals being prepared as well as father-daughter, and sisterly relationships being explored, this quirky family drama is seasoned to near perfection.

21 February 2024

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Part 3 of Director Ang Lee trilogy on "Father Knows Best"

Director Lee’s trilogy ("Father Knows Best") in bringing together family members to create tension and tender comedic moments shine in this trio of PUSHING HANDS (1991), THE WEDDING BANQUET (1993). and Eat Drink Man Woman (1994).

I personally liked this more than the other two movies in Ang Lee's trilogy listed above! There are several more"twists" in this movie, which makes me like it better than the other two movies as well!

I also have to say that this movie made me SO HUNGRY watching it! In hindsight, I wonder if the director tried to use 'food' in this movie as a substitute for 'sex', since only one of the daughters was partaking of bedroom time as far as the audience is concerned at first.

Mr. Chu (Lung Sihung, the main lead for all three of Ang Lee's trilogy) is in this movie a widower who raises his three daughters all by himself, with a little assistance from the faithful food tester in the same restaurant he used to work, Old Wen (the late Wang Jui https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0910954/ , also see photo page for this movie on MDL).

Although he thinks that his daughters enjoy their Sunday dinner he religiously prepares for them, his daughters all dread this Sunday ritual/feast that Mr. Chu labors on every Sunday; partially from his taste buds going bad and the rest from his inability to talk/communicate with them. I personally know some fathers who have problems talking to their daughters, as they (like Mr. Chu) spends long hours working to care for them. The loss of his wife is definitely a strain on Mr. Chu's relationship with his daughters here.

I personally see Mr Chu missing his wife to the point of his daughters 'reminding' him of her; that would explain his being a father at a distance. I feel that he wants the best for them, but cannot always communicate this; hence, he does the only thing that he knows how to - cook for them!

His oldest daughter became a science teacher and his youngest daughter is just starting a first job at a Taipei fast-food place and his middle daughter works for an airline.

I am not going to cover anymore of the details of the movie, but talk about the interactions of the family members. There are several "twists" in this movie but I am only going to hit the major ones.

One of the first twists in this movie is the youngest daughter Jia-Ning (Yu-wen Wang https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0911096/) and her best friend's boyfriend; I saw this coming and see the absence of an actual mother figure in the Chu family as possibly causing this! her only male role model is loving but distant to her and her sisters.

She has a standoff-ish relationship with her immediate family as talked about above; her sisters could have helped her navigate this situation she finds herself in better had there been better communication in the family, especially since her future was drastically changed by what happened to her.

Mr Chu's oldest daughter Jia-Jen (Kuei-Mei Yang) is a rather interesting member of the family. After supposedly being spurned by a college sweetheart, she neither dates men or has much to do with the rest of her family, yet she plans to take care of her father after the other girls leave home. I personally see this happening after her mother dies, and this untimely death also alienates her from her sisters as well.

As in other typical Ang Lee movie, one of the several "twists" in this movie involves the oldest daughter meeting a love interest and changing her future plans tremendously!

Mr. Chu's business associate Old Wen taught Chu's middle daughter Jia-Chien (Chien-Lien Wu) how to cook while waiting for her father to finish his shift at the restaurant where he worked, but Mr Chu refuses to let his daughter cook for the family, forcing his daughter to choose a career the airline industry instead.

I see Mr Chu's reluctance to allow his daughters to cook for the family both as a way of still being a parent to them, but I also see it as a unwillingness to let them 'go', spread their wings, sort of. I don't think he is doing this out of spite; I believe that with his wife still alive, he would have allowed them more leeway in their personal lives.

I know most young girls take over occasional meals with their families; this gives them experience receiving criticism from people who can criticize their culinary skills in a loving way before they leave their home.

I think maybe her looking so much like her mother may have something to do with Mr. Chu's reluctance to his middle daughter taking on the role of the family chef. In my opinion, this is cause for some of the consternation between the two of them.

She also finds out about the truth of her oldest sister's reason for not dating for several years, but this 'discovery' is never brought up again in this movie ; sadly, this is one of the dangling items left unanswered by Ang Lee in this movie!

The middle daughter has a sudden, nasty change in her plans of being the first one to move out; personally I think that Mr Chu is more than happy with what happens to her plans.

In one of the last "twists" in this movie, Mr. Chu, after befriending the grand-daughter of a older woman he knows (who own mother recently returns from the States) and the grandmother of the little girl; he surprises all his daughters and their new families with a major announcement at one of his Sunday dinners; which affects the plans of his middle daughter tremendously, who by now has decided to forgo her ambitions in the airline industry and remain to take care of her father for the rest of his life at her parental home!

Finally at the last scene of the movie, Mr. Chu and his middle daughter discover a miracle of sorts that lets everyone know that
entire family will live happily ever after! I can see the psycho-somatic implications of this by Ang Lee; he must have researched this very well before using it!

Even though this is a great movie, i would have liked to have seen a drama series, where the backgrounds of the different family members could have been more developed so that we could feel more empathy for them! It would have also answered some of the unanswered question that Ang Lee never took care of!

The music was sublime and the cinematography, being a Ang Lee movie, was just perfect for the what was said and done, with the sets of the movie other than Mr. Chu's house, the primary location the entire time, being appropriate and sufficient for making the movie seem real.

All the main and support cast did an excellent job of portraying their individual roles and adding to the realism of this Ang Lee movie!

Special kudos to Madame Liang (Gui Ya Lei) who added a special comical relief where placed by Ang Lee; I especially loved her reaction to Mr. Chu's special announcement at the last meal attended by all of the daughters and their families in the movie!

This and the other movies in this trilogy are available online for free; and each movie may be viewed as an individual movie without watching the entire three-movie set.

The three-volumes set is also available to watch together in one location if you look hard enough online.

This is a full box of Kleenex movie: half for your tears at the sad parts and the other half to stuff in your mouth during the other scenes, like during the last meal announcement with all the family present; you may disturb your neighbors if you don't by laughing too loud!

RE-WATCH VALUE: Definitely, especially if you are an optimist on life!

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