Film

Eat Drink Man Woman (1994)

Director: Ang Lee

Movie review

From Time Out Film Guide

Comedy drama about a widower and his three unmarried daughters. Mr Chu, a retired Taipei chef, would like his girls to leave home, but is too repressed and stubborn to communicate frankly with them, relying instead on the ritual Sunday dinners he serves up to preserve a sense of family. They, however, feel guilty about their own needs: Jia-Jen, a Christian teacher, nursing a broken heart and covert desire for the sports coach; Jia-Chien, a career woman into casual sex with her ex; and the youngest, Jia-Ning who works in a burger-joint and gets on uncomfortably well with a friend's boyfriend. Which daughter, if any, will stay with Dad? Or will he succumb to predatory widow Mrs Liang - if his health holds out? Tasty ingredients (Sihung Lung's Mr Chu and Chien-Lien Wu's Jia-Chien are especially good), but the food metaphor never carries weight, and the characterisations are too shallow to lend the film emotional punch.

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