Salé, sucré

This is a very entertaining movie. The acting is first-rate, and the food is astonishing. The meals are so elaborate and large that watching them be prepared I laughed out loud. It's an outstanding movie, and so involving that I forgot all about the subtitles. If you insist on an American version, "Tortilla Soup" is a good remake, but this is the better movie.

By now, Ang Lee is best known for "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon", "Brokeback Mountain" and "Life of Pi". If you're not familiar with his earlier work, it's worth checking out. Key among it is 1994's Academy Award-nominated "Yǐn shí nán nǚ" ("Eat Drink Man Woman" in English). I understand that this was part of what has become known as Lee's Father Knows Best trilogy. In this case, an aging chef in Taipei tries to come to terms with the different career paths that his daughters have chosen. Without a doubt, the best part of the movie is seeing the food prepared. The opening scene shows the father preparing a feast for himself and his daughters. And boy does he put in a LOT of effort! But as the movie progresses, it becomes clear that the meals are only half the story. There's also the events in the characters' lives, as they seek out relationships. Might it also be time for the father to seek out a relationship? This is definitely one that I recommend. As I read somewhere, the assortment of food representations life: there's a lot available, but you have to decide what you'll choose. A fine one. Another one of Lee's good movies is "The Ice Storm" (a downer if there ever was one).

I came across Yin Shi Nan Nu just by chance, when one day I was sorting DVD's in my local store. I was curious about the name in Spanish, and I have seen other movies by Ang Lee, but I have never repented for my sudden decision to take the movie home. This is a brilliant portrait of a family on the verge of being torn apart by their personal differences and the ominous presence of modernity, which has started to undermine the roots of the traditional Taiwanese family life. The presence of traditional Chinese Cuisine, in which Chu is both a master and the heir to hundreds of years of knowledge, serves as the perfect background to place the characters, as a metaphor for a way of life that is quickly disappearing, threatened by fast food and changes in family values. The director does not, however, focuses on mellow or sweetened scenes to show the conflict, but he maintains a humorous tone throughout the movie, placing the actors' performances on subtle gestures and witty lines which rely heavily on understatement and comedy-like situations. The basic premise of the movie suggests that change is not only inevitable but also necessary. However, the old values still need to be cherished and passed on to the next generation since they are the foundations which give sense and meaning to a life which tends to assimilate happiness to disposable items and economic success. In doing so, Chu and her daughters get reconciled, as well as their traditional background comes to terms with modernity.

From the opening scene, I thought I was going to like this movie. The scene was artfully filmed and the music was great accompaniment. I did have some problems with the carp preparation and especially the chicken preparation. Those scenes were strong advocacy for vegetarianism. After the first scene, the movie started going wrong for me. There was too much emphasis on food preparation. I often had to ask myself if I was watching a movie, or the cooking channel. For example, the meal prepared in the first scene could easily have fed a dozen people and seemed out of proportion to the occasion. I saw two whole chickens, a half dozen frogs, crab dumplings, a whole fish, ham, vegetables, and more. After sitting through most of the movie going through the love affairs of the three daughters, which were quite unimaginative and hardly above the level of a TV sit-com, it finally looked like we might at least get a watered-down version of King Lear. The old man, alienated by the changes he saw in society, abandoned by his daughters, feeling inadequate to pursue his profession, was faced with a situation to challenge his character and courage. I was interested to see how he would handle it. But what did we get, a totally bogus marriage to a woman the age of his daughters followed by a pregnancy. What a cop-out. The ending rally irritated me--I felt totally taken advantage of. The message of the movie seems to be that food and sex are the only meaningful things in life. I agree that they fuel much of what goes on, but there are a lot more things to enjoy as well. I give it a star for being well filmed and edited, a star for the music, and a star for giving us a look at modern Taipei--which looks pretty much like the U.S.

When I finally got around to seeing this on TV a few nights ago, I had completely forgotten that Ang Lee had been the somewhat unusual (it was thought at the time) choice to direct a well-reviewed remake of Jane Austen's "Sense & Sensibility." But as I watched, it struck me quite forcefully that EDMW was an updated version of an Austen movie, and a very clever one. The marriageable daughters are there, the beleaguered father, the talkative woman--in this case the neighbor with designs on Mr. Chu, and I felt that her somewhat over-the top performance was the most Austenesque of the lot. The treatment throughout is delicate, sophisticated and affectionate, and some of the twists--the religious daughter who has lied about her "past" to make herself seem less pathetic--truly original. Lovely performances, pretty young actresses and a good script. I wish I'd seen it earlier, but I'm grateful to a no-commercial station for putting it on now.

Being a female Asian American (1st generation), I definitely relate to the movie, especially the three daughters' devotion to their father and of maintaining and continuing family tradition. I loved the differences amongst the daughters: The older religious teacher daughter, the power executive daughter, and the teen aged daughter. However, no matter how their lives diverged, they were always brought back to the table by their ever-patient father. The little neighbor girl was absolutely adorable and the relationship between her and the father is endearing. The best scene is when she brings her lunch to school and the food is so lovely, tall of the children crowd around her and she's the hit of lunch period. Besides this movie, other Ang Lee films that are great are The Wedding Banquet and The Ice Storm and Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon - need to see Sense and Sensibility and Brokeback Mountain (maybe even the Hulk), but this movie is my all time favorite - it makes me sad and wistful at times, but in the end, it always brings a smile to my face and touches my heart.

The well-traveled metaphor of food as communication is given a tender, appealing treatment in Ang Lee's finely observed film about a widower whose aging and loneliness have caused him to lose touch with his three grown daughters, each of whom is looking for love in modern-day Taiwan. The father (a gallant Sihung Lung) is a master chef who has begun to lose his sense of taste while attempting to come to grips with his daughters' increasing independence and the failing health of his best friend (Jui Wang); he begins to question the basis of existence, namely love and food. The daughters, meanwhile, feeling cramped by their father's distance, begin to explore notions of freedom from their cramped quarters. Lee is in a positive, sympathetic frame of mind here, articulately exploring the theme of alienation that he would later revisit with a much more gloomy perspective in `The Ice Storm' and though the film holds virtually no surprises, it is a stylistic success, easy to like and moving effortlessly with a superior sense of rhythm; it's always pleasing, even when the content feels overly familiar. He demonstrates a healthy respect for his characters (with the exception of a divorcee whose bitter views of marriage don't stop her from pursuing Lung)--everyone gets to play out their lives with dignity and happiness and without an ounce of filmmaker moralizing.