The opening sequence in “ Eat Drink Man Woman,” in which a delectable Taiwanese banquet is prepared by a master chef, is guaranteed to make you contemplate the non-buttered popcorn in your lap and cry. Not quite as delicious -- but nonetheless enjoyable—is the repast that follows: Ang (“The Wedding Banquet”) Lee’s amiable family farce about generational tension and, of course, food.
The chef is Tao Chu (Sihung Lung), a widower with legendary culinary skills, who lives in a state of constant hostility with his three grown-up daughters. He prepares magnificent meals for the family’s regular Sunday dinner, only to see his daughters show little appetite for his labors. Tao, who invests all his energy into this now-empty ritual, has no idea how to communicate with his children. “I don’t understand any of them and I don’t want to,” he laments.
Tao’s exasperation is not restricted to family. He’s also losing faith in life itself. His art is no longer accorded the respect it used to enjoy in Taiwan. Traditional recipes, as far as he’s concerned, are being mixed up into one, banal flavor. He’s literally losing his taste for the food he makes.
Luckily for Tao, the script—written by Lee, James Schamus and Hui-Ling Wang—solves all his problems for him. Coincidental romantic changes in all three women’s lives take effective care of the housebound woes: Jia-Jen (Kuei-Mei Yang), the pious, mousy daughter still mourning the man who jilted her nine years ago, becomes interested in volleyball coach Ming-Dao (Chin-Cheng Lu). Jia-Chien (Chien-Lien Wu), a headstrong deputy director in an airline company, finds herself interested in new associate Li Kai (Winston Chao). And youngest daughter Jia-Ning (Yu-Wen Wang) starts a relationship with mopey Guo-Lun (Chao-Jung Chen), her best friend’s boyfriend.
“Eat Drink” follows an episodic, farcical course, as the women become involved with their respective men outside the home, then make bold announcements at Tao’s dinner table. Although Tao reacts with shock to these pieces of news—and although his ennui would seem to render him too dispirited and misanthropic for such action—he pursues a secret, impulsive course of his own. It proves to be the Chu family’s ultimate shocker.
The latter development is one of several inorganic narrative jumps in the movie. But the movie’s main appeal—beyond stomach yearnings caused by its cuisine—comes from the actors, who infuse their archetypal roles with comedic appeal. Ah-Leh Gua, as the vampish busybody who tries to seduce Tao amid billows of cigarette smoke, steals all her scenes. Chao-Jung Chen is very amusing as a Dostoevski-reading lover tormented by a girlfriend who keeps standing him up. “I want to end this addiction to love,” he tells his friend Jia-Ning with understated world weariness, “but I’m too weak.”
Perhaps most memorable is Kuei-Mei Yang, as religious Jia-Jen, who brazenly tells her family that, not only is she seeing a new man after nine years of abstinence, she married him this morning. When her sister expresses surprise that she married someone who is not Christian, the newlywed replies with delicate ominousness: “He will be.”
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Eat Drink Man Woman (Chinese: 飲食男女) is a 1994 comedy-drama film directed by Ang Lee, from a script co-written with James Schamus and Hui-Ling Wang.[2] It stars Sihung Lung, Wang Yu-wen, Wu Chien-lien, and Yang Kuei-mei[3] as members of the Zhu family navigating the challenges of love, life, tradition and family. Part of Lee's "Father Knows Best" trilogy[4] and similar to Lee's other works, this film deals with the transition from tradition to modernity.[5] It is Lee's only film, to date, to be shot entirely in his native Taiwan.
The film premiered in Taiwan on July 2, 1994, and it was both a critical and box office success.[6] It received several accolades including an Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign Language Film.[7] It was also nominated for both a Golden Globe and BAFTA Award, as well as three Golden Horse Awards and six Independent Spirit Awards. It would inspire films like Tortilla Soup and Joyful Reunion [8] and has an eponymous musical rendition.[9] A BBC Culture poll of film critics ranked the film at number 54 of the 100 Greatest Non-English Language Films.[10]
The title is a quote from the Book of Rites, one of the Confucian classics, referring to the basic human desires and accepting them as natural. The beginning of the quote reads as follows: “The things which men greatly desire are comprehended in food and drink and sexual pleasure.”[a][11]
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