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Summary: Universal themes explored over the dinner table
Review: Don't be mislead by the description on the box. This film is a of generational changes, the old being replaced or suplanted by the new. Yet the film also has funny moments throughout it's length. I don't really think this is a comedy as much as a family drama. The three daughters of Mr. Chu have their own problems in daily life and meeting around the dinner table is the only place everyone is together long enough for someone to make a "little announcement" which is usually a bombshell. This is a fine movie and one that is a must see for anyone, regardless of time, place or culture. The themes are universal. I highly recommend this exceptionally well made film.
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Summary: Seconds, please
Review: Like a good Chinese meal, this film leaves you hungry for more. This is a fun movie to watch- plain and simple. One of my favorites.
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Summary: GREAT Tawainese Style
Review: I love it because of its different culture and its different flavor of the countryside people.It shows not only the beautiful culture of Taiwanese people but their stuggle among family and lover. A-MUST-WATCH masterpiece!
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Summary: the art of cooking
Review: have you ever think that we are loosing the rituality of eating?, that our kitchen are cold and aseptic? Watching this movie you can understand another culture, where cooking and eating is still a possibility to involve all sences and to listen to basic needs, to trasform a sequence of basic actions of everyday life in artistic moment, to care the quality of your life also when you cut some bacon
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Summary: Charming tale blending love with food
Review: At the beginning of the film, Jia-Chien carelessly describes her father's Sunday dinner tradition as a ritualistic torture. Regarding the lavishing efforts of their father as invisible manipulation of their lives, the daughters treat Mr. Chu's feast with little care and see no farther than the dazzling dishes before them. Mr. Chu combines the mastery of cooking with the control of life as he swiftly adds in different blends into his feasts as well as his daughters' lives. Treating everything with a steadfast attitude, choosing every ingredient with meticulous care, and balancing his family vision with reality, Mr. Chu creates sparks in his own life. His daughters, however, constantly struggle with confusion and chaos trying to find their niche in an ever-changing society where everything seems transitory. Only by refocusing on life in a subtle way, on Mr. Chu's dinner table where they are forced to look at life simply as a feast-a beginning, a middle, and an end-do the daughters gradually realize the pace of life and where they belong. Superb cast, better w/ out the dubbling.
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Summary: Excellent foriegn film
Review: This film was used in my film class as sort of an example for our foreign films unit. It's truly fun to watch and will not seem out of reach to Americans like some foriegn films might. It's a good way to broaden your mind a bit about Chinese life. Did I mention the comedy, food and sex? If you like Chinese or other Asian food you have no excuse! Master chef Chu cooks up really amazing and incredible foods. It's also got a very entertaining love-relationship storyline and is quite serious and comical at the same time.
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Summary: Eat dinner BEFORE you watch this movie
Review: Master Chef Chu is losing his tastebuds. Meanwhile his attractive young daughters are seeking out love and sex. His eldest is a spinsterish teacher, heartbroken since her collge boyfriend dumped her ten years ago. His middle daughter is a pure career woman, all head and no heart. His youngest is a sweet college student. The sensuous cooking scenes rival the (tasteful) sex scenes. The funniest one is when a scene showing the middle girl in bed with a lover is juxtaposed beside one of Old Chu blowing into the mouth of a duck he is preparing. The heart-stopping Winston Chao is back, this time straight, so ladies, start your VCRs!
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Summary: a great movie about chinese mind
Review: i used watch this movie two times. and this movie can really told you what chinese would really thinking and doing in their own world. and this is the best chinese movie that you can get in america.
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Summary: a delicate celebration of the humanity we share
Review: I adore this movie. To describe it I use an adjective that I pretty much reserve for this movie alone. It is beautiful. The ending always makes me cry, no matter now many times I've seen it (10 or 11 I think). The movie seems to explore whether eat, drink, man, woman -in other words food and sex- are the only things we live for but then the story and the lives of the people involved open their blossoms to reveal something deeper, something intangible, a feeling, a love, and tell us without words what life is really all about. I agree that you should see this in the original with subtitles. Food, which is the carrier of the story, is elevated to an art, and reminds me why I love asian cuisine. The perfomances of the actors portraying Mr. Chu and Shan Shan are simply endearing. This movie just gives me a warm feeling in the belly whenever I watch it, and that not just because of the food. The simplicity and grace... enough, I could talk about this movie forever.
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Summary: FANTASTIC!
Review: I love foreign films and am always fascinated when I watch the Oscars to see what doesn't come out of Hollywood. This film is superb, the plot, the acting and of course the food! The preparation of the meals alone is worth watching this movie, it is art. Watch the movie with subtitles, I watched this movie dubbed and I could only watch a few minutes, it is not the same in English.
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