Eat Drink Man Woman

1994 food movie

Rating: 16/20

Plot: A chef adjusts to a live without taste buds as his three adult daughters deal with love, religion, careers, and other things women deal with.

Ang Lee so intricately pieces together these lives for his audience, and I got sucked right in although I can't think of a reason why I'd care about any of these people. The shots of the dad preparing all this food in an opening sequence hooked me. IMdB tells me that that opening sequence took over a week to film, but it was worth it, probably just for the shot of the guy inflating a duck with his mouth.

That memory of watching Sihung Lung, which sounds like some sort of affliction that coal miners might suffer from, inflate that duck inspired me to look up a bunch of pictures of classic game show host Gene Rayburn, so this review of Eat Drink Man Woman has taken me over three hours to write. And by the way, if you can't figure out the connection between duck inflation and Gene Rayburn, that one is on you, friend, and not on me.

Actually, maybe that was a goose. Do people even eat geese? Great. Add geese and ducks to the animals that I get confused along with alligators and crocodiles and crows and ravens. This lack of rudimentary animal knowledge probably should disqualify me as a movie reviewer. In my defense, this bird that was being inflated did not have any feathers. Apparently, you don't cook fowl with the feathers on.

I've spent more time than I should looking for a gif of Sihung Lung inflating the duck. How does one make a gif? Before continuing this, I'm going to take a look at that.

I just watched that opening sequence again with all the food. I have to admit, friends, that I got a little hard. I had no luck making a gif, but I watched the duck thing seven times which is almost the same thing.

This is taking me way too long to write, and I'm not sure I've even said anything about the movie yet. That's probably not good.

Along with the scenes where the dad--or in a couple of scenes, one of the daughters--prepares food, I also liked an early shot where the father is called into the gigantic kitchen where they're preparing food for a whole bunch of people in a very fancy place. The way the camera whisks through that kitchen, all that activity, the noise swells. It made the kitchen look like the most exciting place on earth, and for all I know, it really is. I mean, people inflating ducks and all.

No spoilers, but I loved a scene with the dad's friend who, earlier in the movie, says, "Just like me to be almost killed by a fart." I really hope that's the title of the final chapter of my autobiography, but I'm not sure how that's going to happen.

I was surprised to see Wendy's in this. Is it product placement if you follow all these exquisite shots of all this food preparation and then follow it with shots in a busy fast food restaurant? Probably not.

I've digressed enough, but I kind of loved spending time with these characters. Ang Lee gives us fragments of information about the lives of these daughters, filling us in one insignificant detail at a time, and it all comes together so perfectly. Sunday dinners have these "little announcements" that almost work like punchlines, bringing surprises and revelations. It has a lot to say about--without telling you anything at all--father/daughter relationships, the clash between traditions and modern thinking, the way families communicate (through food or, in one case, through karaoke), friendship, people's taste for life, romantic love. With only hints at actual plots, Lee still manages to give us surprises around every corner.

I even laughed once during a scene that takes place at the school of the daughter of one of the father's daughter's friends. I'm clearly not trying hard with that last sentence, but I have to go look for more pictures of Gene Rayburn and watch the guy blowing up the goose a few more times.