Joyful Reunion

饮食、男女  好远又好近

Taiwan/China, 2012, colour, 2.35:1, 107 mins.

Director: Cao Ruiyuan 曹瑞原.

Rating: 6/10.

Patchy but lightly enjoyable foodie film, boosted by veteran Gui Yalei’s full-on performance.

STORY

Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, China, the present day. Master chef Tang Shizhe (Zeng Jiang) tells his two daughters, the careerist Tang Wa’er (Huo Siyan) and teenage Tang Xiaolan (Jiang Mengjie), that he has decided to sell his upscale vegetarian restaurant, the centre of his life for 30 years. Tang Wa’er manages a luxury health resort and is dating Zhang Quan (Lan Zhenglong), a computer-games designer from Taiwan. Zhang Quan goes to Taibei to visit his aunt, Bai Ping (Gui Yalei), who effectively raised him, and she ends up accompanying him back to Hangzhou, where she originally grew up but hasn’t re-visited since leaving for Taiwan in her teens. Bai Ping meets Tang Wa’er but her forthrightness often proves embarrassing in the sophisticated circles Tang Wa’er moves in. Bai Ping notices, however, that Bei Ming (Zhang Xiaoquan), general manager of the luxury health-resort group, is also romancing Tang Wa’er, who feels neglected by Zhang Quan in favour of his work. One day Bai Ping tells Tang Wa’er her story – how she was born in Hunan province, moved when young to Hangzhou where she worked in the restaurant business, and finally moved to Taiwan – and the two women bond. When Tang Shizhe reveals the real reason for selling his restaurant, Tang Wa’er resigns from her job to help him out and be with him. Meanwhile, Tang Shizhe, who has not yet met Bai Ping, decides to cook a special meal to welcome her.

REVIEW

Though Eat Drink Man Woman 饮食男女 (1994) spawned several imitation, cookery-themed movies over the years – such as Four Chefs and a Feast 四个厨师一围菜 (1999), which even included two of the original cast, Lang Xiong 郎雄 and Wu Qianlian 吴倩莲 – Joyful Reunion 饮食、男女  好远又好近 is the official “sequel”, 18 years after the hit by director Li An 李安 [Ang Lee] and with its producer, Xu Ligong 徐立功, now 68, still at the wheel. In fact, it isn’t a sequel at all, more a bouillabaisse of some of the same elements (mixing food and human relationships) and lightly garnished (as per its English title) with a reunification message.

The screenplay, by an army of six writers and two “script co-ordinators”, keeps the rom-com elements lightly ticking over but doesn’t reach down very far to integrate the human and food sides in the same way as Li’s original movie. For a start, the film is an extended plug for vegetarianism – which doubtless helped it secure a world premiere slot in the Berlin Film Festival’s Culinary Cinema sidebar, supervised by vegetarian Berlinale boss Dieter Kosslick. It’s also not fully convincing on the culinary side: did vegetarian fusion cooking (a main plot point) really exist in Hangzhou in the late 1940s? Added to which, the screenplay is also very episodic and structurally shaky: the key meeting between two of the protagonists is artificially delayed to provide a resolution that the audience is already way ahead of.

With its setting largely in China rather than Taiwan – a reflection of present-day realities – the movie works best as an amusing, though not particularly original, light comedy, dominated by the performance of Taiwan veteran Gui Yalei 归亚蕾. When the 67-year-old actress, who had a supporting role in Li’s original, is on the screen, the film bubbles like a hotpot and earns an extra point. In early scenes she has fun as a straight-talking, trashy Taiwanese returning to the Mainland for the first time in half-a-century – to be met by a New China of luxury health resorts, culinary snobbery, large disposable incomes and lifestyle sophistication. In later scenes Gui moves from clowning to nostalgia – accompanied by a soupy score by Zhong Xingmin 钟兴民 – with equal skill, as well as displaying impressive form on the dance floor.

In the de facto Lang Xiong role as a veteran master chef, Hong Kong’s Zeng Jiang 曾江 [Kenneth Tsang] brings a quiet dignity to the movie, as well as sharing some nice moments of nostalgia with Ding Qiang 丁强 as his head chef-cum-friend. Other performances are okay but don’t leave much emotional trace: Mainland actress Huo Siyan 霍思燕 (Distant Thunder 迷城, 2010; The Island 绝命岛, 2010) as Tang Wa’er, the careerist manager of a health resort; Taiwan’s Lan Zhenglong 蓝正龙 (Night Market Hero 鸡排英雄, 2011) less believable as her computer-geek boyfriend; and China’s Jiang Mengjie 蒋梦婕 (Lin Daiyu in the Li Shaohong 李少红-directed TV drama The Dream of Red Mansions 新版红楼梦, 2010) okay in the under-developed role of Tang Wa’er’s pouty younger sister. Journeyman Cao Ruiyuan 曹瑞原 (Love’s Lone Flower 青春蝴蝶孤恋花, 2005) directs smoothly enough, helped by good-looking but not succulent photography by fellow Taiwanese Qin Dingchang 秦鼎昌 (Night Market Hero; Cape No. 7 海角七号, 2008).

The Chinese title literally means Drink Eat, Man Woman: So Far and So Near, another reference to reunification.

CREDITS

Presented by Taihe Universal Film Investment (CN), Tang Moon International Productions (TW), Zhejiang Roc Pictures (CN). Produced by Tang Moon International Productions (TW).

Script: Tan Miao, Chen Shijie, Wang Ciyang, Zhou Yanzi, Xu Weiqing, Tu Xiangwen. Photography: Qin Dingchang. Editing: He Junhui. Editing advice: Liao Qingsong. Music: Zhong Xingmin. Production design: Li Dungang. Art direction: Lv Jing (China). Costume design: She Xiaoyin, Xu Shuhua. Sound: Du Duzhi. Choreography: Sławomir Sochacki. Food consultant: Liang Yuxiang.

Cast: Gui Yalei (Bai Ping/Apple), Huo Siyan (Tang Wa’er), Lan Zhenglong (Zhang Quan, Bai Ping’s nephew), Zeng Jiang [Kenneth Tsang] (Tang Shizhe), Zhang Xiaoquan [Joseph Chang] (Bei Ming, Wa’er’s boss), Jiang Mengjie (Tang Xiaolan, Tang Wa’er’s younger sister), Yang Yang (young Tang Shizhe), Li Qin (young Bai Ping), Huang Xuan (Hou Yufan), Ding Qiang (Wang, Tang Shizhe’s head chef), Liu Xin (Hou Yufan’s cousin), Jin Qin (Chris, barman), Sławomir Sochacki (William, dance instructor).

Premiere: Berlin Film Festival (Culinary Cinema), 16 Feb 2012.

Release: Taiwan, 23 Mar 2012; China, 23 Mar 2012.

(Review originally published on Film Business Asia, 28 Feb 2012.)