This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Community Corner

First Friday Films: Eat Drink Man Woman (1994)

Eat Drink Man Woman (Yin she nan nu) is a 1994 Taiwanese film directed by Ang Lee which received an Academy Award Nomination for Best Foreign Language Film in 1995. The title is a quote from The Book of Rites, a Confucian classic referring to acceptance of the basic human desires as natural. The film highlights the tensions between generations of a Confucian family, between East and West, between tradition and modernity.

Master Chef Chu lives in a large house with his three unmarried daughters; each challenges the narrow definitions of traditional Chinese culture. Every Sunday Mr. Chu, a famous chef, prepares an elaborate traditional banquet for his daughters. But they experience the banquet as a torture chamber. They want to leave their old "father knows best" way of life and enter a new way of living where they wrap old values in new forms. It stars Sihung Lung as renowned Chef Chu and as his three daughters, Yu-Wen Wang as Jai-Ning, a student who works in a fast food restaurant; Chien-lien Wu as Jai-Chien, an airline executive; and Kuei-Mei Yang as Jai-Jen, a chemistry teacher who converted to Christianity.

Though Chef Chu finds it hard to believe, his daughter Jia-Chien inherits his talent for cooking. She prepares an elaborate meal for her boyfriend - carp with garlic sauce, duck-oil sauteed pea sprouts, squid rings, duck sauteed with garlic and tofu dumplings. The cooking truly follows the ancient Chinese philosophy that every meal includes a balance of energies, flavors and types of foods -- sweet and sour, mild and spicy, hot and cool, crunchy and smooth, vegetable and fish, grain and meat. Movie trivia: The opening banquet scene was so elaborate it took a week to prepare and shoot. Hal Hinson of The Washington Post said, "Eat Drink Man Woman is a delicacy but also something more -- something like food for the heart." Run time 123 minutes; PG 13. Join us for popcorn during and discussion after.

Download the movie

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

The views expressed in this post are the author's own. Want to post on Patch?