Eat Drink Man Woman (1994)

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REVIEW

I watch this movie last night because I saw that Ang Lee, director of Brokeback Mountain and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, directed and wrote this movie glorifying Chinese cuisine, linking it to romance and sensuality.

It’s called Eat Drink Man Woman, or Yin Shi Nan Nu in Mandarin, and it was Lee’s first movie filmed in Taiwan. It was, according to some, a highly acclaimed success.

But I can’t lie to you. The real reason I watch it was the cover. As you can see, there are three slender, cutish looking Chinese women, lying seductively near plates of food. Below that, the Australian rating for the movie was ‘Moderate Level Sex Scenes’ for comparison, Basic Instinct had the same disclaimer. And the quote on the front reads ‘It’s hard to tell where the sex stops and the food begins!’

I think you see where I’m going with this.

I thought it was going to be a dirty little movie about sex and food, with lots of cooking scenes and even more gratuitous nudity. Sex and food are, these days, two of my favourite extra-curricular activities, and I was looking forward to indulging myself.

Sigh there was no sex. Well, there was one scene, about 8 seconds, of a Chinese man on top of a Chinese woman who looked like she was bored out of her mind.

There’s a couple of references to sex. But no actual sexy sex.

If you’re wondering why I’m going on and on about the sex, it’s because the rest of this movie was entrenched firmly in mediocrity. The acting of the three daughters was wooden and irritating, and the story is quite dull. Sylvia Chang has a small part, and she’s fantastic, but her time on screen is limited.

It had so much potential! Sihung Lung is a fantastic actor, with a great speaking voice, and he portrays the grandfather. The scenes of him cooking outstanding Chinese dishes was nearly enough to make me choke on my own drool.

The grandfather lives at home with three grown-up daughters, none of whom are married or even close to getting married. It looks like he’ll be stuck with all of them, but actually, they’ll all meet guys, unconvincingly, fall in love, unconvincingly, and leave home. Almost. Who cares? Not me.

At no point, did I feel sympathy for any of the daughters, nor did I care about what was going on. If it wasn’t for the food and the great scenes with the grandfather and his friend, I might have turned it off. Moderate level sex scenes, indeed! Humph! I’m outraged.

Outraged and confused. Outraged, confused and disappointed and still hungry.

I say

Give this one a miss you’d be better off watching other, better realized films like Sylvia Chang’s own 20 30 40. Her actresses are pretty-pretty, and never deliver a line without conviction.

See it for

The first 10 minutes is a near-perverse montage of the grandfather cooking some of the most delicious looking Chinese food I’ve ever seen. I was full from dinner, but I quickly became hungry. Oh, crab dumplings!

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