God of Cookery (1996)

Ahhh, a movie made before I was born, I feel young. Hong Kong movies hold a special little place in my heart, I blame Jackie Chan for introducing me to the quirky world of Hong Kong Film. God of Cookery delivered pretty much what I expected to find. Granted that this is a film which was made much before my time so I have no way of knowing whether this is a well made film for the time or not, however compared to other Hong Kong films I've seen from this generation, it's a pretty darn good movie.
The film started off well, we have the arrogant chef who has lost his way in the world of cookery and we also have the traitor who sells out the so-called 'God of Cookery' and takes his place. Fairly routine start to a movie good guys, bad guys, the rebel who befriends the hero , pretty average storyline. It progresses well, until the last... half an hour or so. Now I'm not saying it was a bad ending... it was just weird. Like, this film starts so believable and then they just pull that out of the hat. I won't lie that I didn't per myself laughing, but it was weird. If you watch this film, be aware it follows all the predictable laws of film making, but it does it in its own special little way.
There are quite a few innuendos within this film, but that's something that I know will happen in a Hong Kong Film. I don't think I've seen one of this films without at least two sexual innuendos. It's beautiful. Man I love directors with a sense of humour, it brightens up my day.
If you want to watch this because you're a fan of food... the food porn level is at about 3/5. There is lots of food, obviously it a a film about a chef, but there are few scenes where you sit in awe with drool seeping from the side of your mouth. A majority of the food scenes are to add comedic value. The 'ping-pong ball' meat ball.. things... there is basically no "ERHMAHGAWDSHOVEITINMYMOUTH" moments. It's fairly average looking food. There are the odd nice food making scenes, but very few. In addition the fancy chef skills are obviously CGI and a lot of flailing. Pretty sure the actors had never cooked before... or they were shown an anime video and told to pretend they could do that. But again, this awful cooking acting stuff didn't downgrade the film at all. It just added a segment of vague amusement for the enjoyment of the viewer.
To me, based on previous films I've seen, this is a pretty basic Hong Kong movie. The actors are funny, the director has a sense of humour and the actual filming seems like it's done by a group of well versed students with a decent budget. However that last one is probably more to do with the era it was filmed in. I quite enjoyed watching this movie, and although it's probably not one is recommend to my friends (due to strange ending), I would recommend it to anyone who wants to have a bit of a giggle and be entertained for a couple of hours. The film crew obviously had a lot of fun during this movie, and it is expressed deeply though the acting, that is something which really completed God of Cookery for me. By seeing a group of actors enjoy acting out this film, I myself found myself enjoying it. It's worth the watch if you have time, so have fun and enjoy it.

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