CHINESE FEAST (1995)
Directed by: Tsui Hark
Starring: Leslie Cheung, Anita Yuen, Kenny Bee, Chiu Man-cheuk, Xiong Xin-xin, Joyce Ngai, Law Kar-ying, Lau Shun
"...like a Ginsu knife commercial directed by a genius."
- Mike LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle
When discussing The Chinese Feast a helpful food metaphor goes a long way. So: taking his technical virtuosity and mixing it with a visual style that can only be described as psychedelic eye candy, Tsui Hark leaves this to simmer on the stove like a boiling stock, slowly combining flavors, while martial arts conventions are shucked and flash fried before going in the talent stock to marinade. Then celebrity performers with impeccable comic timing are zested and minced into the pot, while low comedy is julienned and thrown into a stir-fry, and a chef's knife of experience does a rough chop of a devil-may-care loin of surreal tomfoolery which is fried, tempura style, in a lightly smoking oil of family melodrama. The ingredients are combined, poured over shark fins, and served flambé' style, plated on the movie screen like a towering creation out of Charlie Trotter's kitchen.
Iron Chef Hong Kong style, The Chinese Feast is the nutty New Testament of gourmet food worship. Star Wars for the foodie set, it pits a ragtag band of rebel restaurateurs against the evil empire of the Food Supergroup led by shark-toothed Xiong Xin-xin (The Blade). Food-fu erupts! Recipes replace kung fu stances, and chefs train harder than the Shaolin monks, as Tsui Hark channels John Waters to direct this maxed-out version of Eat, Drink, Man, Woman. Like a wild wet noodle, this half-baked strudel whips itself all over the place, and directly in your face, as it celebrates gluttony and stupidity in family-sized portions.
1995 was a weird year for Tsui Hark. Towards the end of 1994 he produced Ringo Lam's dark martial fantasy, Burning Paradise, which couldn't have made less money if he'd released it in a dark alley. Then he paired newcomers Nicky Wu and Charlie Yeung in a breezy adaptation of a traditional folk tale, The Lovers, and scored a hit at the box office that made Charlie Yeung a teen idol. Next came the fifth installment of the Once Upon a Time in China series, now starring Chiu Man-cheuk, and it barely out- grossed Burning Paradise. Taking the hint, Tsui Hark then wrote, produced and directed The Chinese Feast, the biggest hit he'd have in years. In an industry that was feeling an economic crunch a hit was a movie that made over $13 million. Feast pulled in an easy $31 mill.
The Chinese Feast runs the standard equation of food = love in reverse, turning whipping up a light snack into a sanctified act that's almost like having sex, but more meaningful. The most primal things in the world are family, food, love and comedy and all four are carefully layered in this grand salad of silliness. The characters are all lost souls who've fallen from grace. There's Master Kit (Kenny Bee), a workaholic chef who is abandoned by his talent. There's Chiu (Lesilie Cheung, a Hong Kong pop diva and acting superstar - think Madonna cross-bred with Robert DeNiro, but funnier), a young loan shark desperate to become a chef so he can immigrate to Canada with his Japanese girlfriend. And then there's Au Ka-wai (Anita Yuen, Hong Kong's most popular current comedienne), a fashion punk, forced to work in her dad's restaurant, where she torments him with her incessant English babble. It takes Dragon Chasing Pearl, Qing-Han Imperial Feast, Monkey Brain with Shark's Fin Soup, Frozen Bear Claw, Beef Fried Noodles, and a hundred other recipes applied like a balm to soothe the lost souls of these three chefs.
New Years movies are traditionally the year's biggest blockbusters, great crowd-pleasing, family entertainments that thrill Hong Kongers and come with their own rules and rituals. The Chinese Feast is a New Year's Movie, and a great one, that comes by its schmaltz honestly. An acting showcase, a kung fu comedy, a cooking show from heaven, a family weepie - it's too many things in one. When the cast and crew turn at the end of the film to toast the audience for watching, you'll heave yourself up from the table completely satisfied, after loosening your belt a notch or two, from taking in Tsui Hark's sugar-loaded, high-starch treat.