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.
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.
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