Eat Drink Man Woman

Eat Drink Man Woman

DVD cover
Traditional 飲食男女
Simplified 饮食男女
Mandarin yǐn shí nán nǚ
Directed by Ang Lee
Produced by Hsu Li Kong
Hsu Kong
Written by Ang Lee
James Schamus
Hui-Ling Wang
Starring
Music by Mader
Cinematography Jong Lin
Edited by Ang Lee
Tim Squyres
Distributed by The Samuel Goldwyn Company
Release dates
  • August 3, 1994 (1994-08-03)
Running time
 123 minutes
Country Taiwan
Language Mandarin
Box office $7.2 million

Eat Drink Man Woman is a 1994 Taiwanese film directed by Ang Lee and starring Sihung Lung, Yu-wen Wang, Chien-lien Wu, and Kuei-mei Yang.[1] The film was released on August 3, 1994, the first of Lee's films to be both a critical and box office success.[2] In 1994, the film received the Asia Pacific Film Festival Award for Best Film, and in 1995 it received an Academy Award Nomination for Best Foreign Language Film.[3][4]

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 meat and drink and sexual pleasure; […]” (Translation by James Legge), Chinese: 「飲食男女，人之大欲存焉」.[5]

Many of the cast members had appeared in Ang Lee's previous films. Sihung Lung and Ah Lei Gua played central elderly figures dealing with the transition from tradition to modernity in The Wedding Banquet, in which Winston Chao also starred. Sihung Lung played an immigrant father in Pushing Hands. These three films show the tensions between the generations of a Confucian family, between East and West, and between tradition and modernity. They form what has been called Lee's "Father Knows Best" trilogy.[6]

Plot

The setting is 1990s contemporary Taipei, Taiwan. Mr. Chu (C: 老朱, P: Lǎo Zhū "Old Chu"; Sihung Lung), a widower who is a master Chinese chef, has three unmarried daughters, each of whom challenges any narrow definition of traditional Chinese culture:

Each Sunday Mr. Chu makes a glorious banquet for his daughters, but the dinner table is also the family forum, or perhaps “torture chamber,” to which each daughter brings “announcements” as they negotiate the transition from traditional “father knows best” style to a new tradition which encompasses old values in new forms.

Other characters include:

As the film progresses, each daughter encounters new men. When these new relationships blossom, their roles are broken and the living situation within the family changes. The father eventually brings the greatest surprise to the audience at the end of the story.

Development

Ang Lee, James Schamus, and Hui-Ling Wang wrote the script.[7]

Cast

Reception

Critical response

In her review in The New York Times, Janet Maslin praised Ang Lee as "a warmly engaging storyteller." She wrote, "Wonderfully seductive, and nicely knowing about all of its characters' appetites, Eat Drink Man Woman makes for an uncomplicatedly pleasant experience."[11]

In his review in the Washington Post, Hal Hinson called the film a "beautiful balance of elements ... mellow, harmonious and poignantly funny." Hinson concluded:

As the relationships evolve and deepen, there seems to be a surprise around every corner—for both the characters and the audience. But what is most surprising, perhaps, is how involved we become with these people. As satisfying as food can be, the fullness we feel at the end here is far richer and more complex than that offered by the most extravagant meal. “ Eat Drink Man Woman” is a delicacy but also something more—something like food for the heart.[12]

On the aggregate reviewer web site Rotten Tomatoes, the film received a 94% positive rating from top film critics based on 31 reviews, and a 91% positive audience rating based on 13,132 reviews.[2]

Influence

Tortilla Soup, a 2001 American comedy-drama film directed by Maria Ripoll, is based on Eat Drink Man Woman.

Awards

See also

References

Notes

  1. ↑ Sihung Lung was credited as Lang Hsiung.

Citations

  1. ↑ "Eat Drink Man Woman". Internet Movie Database. Retrieved February 28, 2012.
  2. 1 2 "Eat Drink Man Woman". Rotten Tomaties. Retrieved February 28, 2012.
  3. 1 2 "Awards for Eat Drink Man Woman". Internet Movie Database. Retrieved February 28, 2012.
  4. ↑ "The 67th Academy Awards (1995) Nominees and Winners". oscars.org. Retrieved 26 September 2015.
  5. ↑ "Lǐyùn 禮運 19" [Ceremonial usages; their origins, development, and intention], Lǐjì 《禮記》 [Book of Rites]
  6. ↑ Wei Ming Dariotis, Eileen Fung, "Breaking the Soy Sauce Jar: Diaspora and Displacement in the Films of Ang Lee," in Hsiao-peng Lu, ed., Transnational Chinese Cinemas: Identity, Nationhood, Gender (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1997), p. 242.
  7. 1 2 3 4 5 Howe, Desson. "‘Eat Drink Man Woman’." Washington Post. October 19, 1994. Retrieved on November 20, 2013.
  8. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 Dariotis and Fung, p. 211.
  9. 1 2 Dariotis and Fung, p. 212.
  10. ↑ "Full cast and crew for Eat Drink Man Woman". Internet Movie Database. Retrieved February 28, 2012.
  11. ↑ Maslin, Janet (August 3, 1994). "Film Review: Avoiding Basic Human Desires, or Trying To". The New York Times. Retrieved July 8, 2011.
  12. ↑ Hinson, Hal (August 19, 1994). "Eat Drink Man Woman". Washington Post. Retrieved February 28, 2012.

Bibliography

  • Vick, Tom (2008). Asian Cinema: A Field Guide. New York: Harper Perennial. ISBN 978-0061145858. 
  • Dariotis, Wei Ming and Eileen Fung. "Breaking the Soy Sauce Jar: Diaspora and Displacement in the Films of Ang Lee." in: Lu, Sheldon Hsiao-peng (Xiaopeng) (editor). Transnational Chinese Cinemas: Identity, Nationhood, Gender. University of Hawaii Press, January 1, 1997. ISBN 0824818458, 9780824818456.

External links

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 10/27/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.