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Director Ang Lee
took the world (and award ceremonies everywhere) by storm in 2000 with his
ground-breaking film, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. But his 1994 film, Eat
Drink Man Woman, proves that Lee’s spectacular directing in Crouching Tiger
wasn’t just a fluke.
Eat Drink Man Woman (Yin Shi Nan Nu)
follows the lives of a family in Taipei—a widowed chef, Chu (Sihung Lung), and his three
daughters. Chu is nearing retirement and is frustrated by his weakening sense of taste
and his daughters’ growing independence. His oldest daughter is a chemistry teacher
who’s never gotten over a decade-old broken heart. She’s given up on love and given her
heart to religion—and she’s accepted the fact that she’ll be the one to stay and take
care of her aging father. Chu’s middle daughter is an airline executive who’s fiercely
independent when it comes to both her family and her relationships with men. She fights
her father’s traditionalism, yet she feels tied to it—she wants to move out and get her
own place and live her own life, but she feels obligated to her family at the same time.
And Chu’s youngest daughter is a student (who also works at Wendy’s) who’s still naïve
when it comes to love.
Each Sunday, Chu slaves in the kitchen, lovingly
preparing a feast for his three daughters, who eat first in awkward silence but begin to
open up to each other as the film progresses.
Eat Drink is an
inexplicably beautiful film about family, food, and love. In it, the four main
characters learn to love—and learn to follow their hearts—while they learn to appreciate
one another. It’s not a fast-paced, action-filled movie, but the characters are
captivating enough to hold your attention—and it’s seasoned with just the right amount of
laughter and tears.
Just a few words of warning, however: there are
several cooking scenes, in which Chu creates his mouth-watering Chinese dishes. First,
be warned that they’re sure to give you the urge to pause the movie and call the Chinese
takeout place down the street. So you might want to be prepared and order some fried
rice and egg rolls before you push play. And second, vegetarian viewers might want to
close their eyes during some of the cooking scenes. In fact, even if you’re not a
vegetarian, you may want to close your eyes—or you may feel compelled to become a
vegetarian after seeing the things that Chu does to chicken carcasses.
If
you loved Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, though, you’ll fall in love with Eat
Drink Man Woman, too. I recommend that you run right out to the video store, pick up
some Chinese takeout on your way home, and enjoy this tasty film with someone you love.
