"Eat Drink Man Woman"

Eat Drink Man Woman

"Eat Drink Man Woman" was released in1996 and was directed by Ang Lee. The movie tells the story of an old widowed chef, Chef Chu and his three daughters. Chef Chu lives in Taipei, Taiwan with his three beautiful daughters, Jia-Jen, Jia-Chien, and Jia-Ning. The film begins with Chef Chu, who is losing his sense of taste, preparing a Sunday ritual dinner as an attempt to compensate for the lack of communication between him and his daughters. The four can hardly relate to one another making these Sunday dinners torturous for the three daughters. As the movie progresses, the three daughters along with the father, discover love. Jia-Jen, a devoted Christian, falls for the volleyball coach, Jia-Ning, who works at a fast food joint, falls in love and becomes pregnant by her boyfriend, Jia-Chien, an airline executive, begins to pursue her love for cooking, and Chef Chu gets his sense of taste back and begins a relationship with one of his daughters schoolmates.

The theme of this movie is that, like food, love is also a necessity of life. Unspoken love seems to be the subject of concern in the family. Chef Chu uses his ritual dinner as a way of expressing his love towards his three daughters. The three daughters on the other hand are not only disconnected from their father but from each other as well. As the movie progresses, they each discover true love. Jia-Jen falls for a volleyball coach, Jia-Ning falls in love with her co-workers ex-boyfriend, and although Jia-Chien doesn’t quite end up with her partner at work, she takes over the responsibility of keeping the Sunday ritual dinners and pursues her love for cooking, just as her father. Another theme seems to be intergenerational conflict. Being widowed for sixteen years, Chef Chu has lost all means of communication with his daughters. He mentions during the movie, that he doesn’t understand them, nor does he want to while the daughters find his traditional dinners torturous and the meals unsatisfying.

The movie was an excellent portrayal of love, relationships, and culture. It was nice how despite no longer being able to successfully communicate with his daughters, Chef Chu still manages to spend time with them. The daughters who at first seemed so cold and almost stoic learned soon discovered love as the movie progressed. The movie also showed how western civilization played a large part in the lives of the daughters which was very interesting. The eldest daughter remained pure which was common in the Chinese culture, however converted to Christianity. The middle daughter, Jia-Chien, a career woman, showed a sense of western culture in her strictly physical relationship with her boyfriend. Finally, the youngest daughter works at a Wendy’s fast food joint and becomes impregnated by her boyfriend. Overall, the movie was very enlightening.