Eat Drink Man Woman

Eat Drink Man Woman is the story of a widowed father, Mr. Chu, who is living in a house with his three daughters. The story is ultimately about family, and no matter what you lose in life, family will conquer all. The family has a tradition of eating dinner together. The way the family communicates to each other is through this dinner. Mr. Chu who is a famous chef prepares all day for this dinner and has a big feast planned for him and his daughters. It is through these dinner nin the film that major events happen and that the members of the family are brought up to speed on the lives of one another.

Through out the course of the story Mr. Chu seems to be losing alot. He loses his best friend and coworker Wen, this hits Mr. Chu hard, he loses his sense of taste he is depressed and seems like he is in bad health. His daughters wonder if he will be able to rebound from this shocking event. Each of Chu's three daughters are dealing with a love story throughout the film. Jia-Jen and Jia-Ning the oldest and youngest daughters both find themselves in love with men, who ultimately end up marrying them and taking them away from Mr. Chu. Jia-Ning gets pregnant however and is forced to marry her husband. These marriages are annouced to the family at thier traditional dinner. With two of the three daughters out of the house it is just Mr. Chu and the middle daughter Jia-Chien living in the house. Jia-Chein gets offered a promotion at her job in the airline industry which would require her to move and work in Amsterdam. She turns it down because she is worried about her fathers condition and wants to stay with him.

Meanwhile in the story there is Mrs. Liang who is an older woman who is interested in Mr. Chu. She is always over talking to Mr. Chu trying to get with him. Mrs. Liang's daughter on the other hand Jin-Rong is a young mother with a daughter, Shan-Shan. During the film Mr. Chu makes lunch for Shan-Shan and trades it to her for the lunch that her mother had made for her.

With two of his daughters married and Mrs. Liang in persuit of Mr. Chu. He invites everyone to a family dinner, including his daughters new husbands, Mrs. Liang, Jin-Rong, and Shan-Shan. Everyone is at the table enjoying the meal when Mr. Chu says that he has an announcment to make. He stands and begins to speak. Everyone is anticipating that he is going to annouce that he is planning to marry Mrs. Liang. He begins by saying that he will be selling the house and then shockingly he annouces his love for young Jin-Rong. Mrs. Liang is stunned by the news and goes crazy at the table and has to be carried out of the room. Everyone at the dinner is upset and disappointed at the fathers decision. You later see him in his new apartment with Jin-Rong she is pregnant and she tells him she loves him. The final scene is of Mr. Chu going to the old house for his last dinner there, this time being cooked by Jia-Chien. He tastes her soup and immediately begins complaining about the taste until he realizes that he got his sense of taste back. Happy that he is back to normal again he grabs his daughters hand and says "daughter" she responds by saying "father" and the film ends.

I personally think that the films is an interesting story however i wish some of the elements were a little more realistic. The time period in which the girls meet their boyfriends and get married seems extremely unrealistic. I know it is a film but there director should have shown some symbol of time passing. Other than the timeline of the film I felt that it was a great story about a man who needed to find something new in his life and did so through the least expected means. As for my favorite scene i really like the opening sequence because it really depicted just who Mr. Chu is and how great he truely is at his job. It is reflectant of the way he runs his household as well. here is the scene: