Sammo Hung stars in an odd combination of kung fu and cooking.
Its the story of a chef who's nephew sets him up to take a fall at a banquet. Years later he ends up working for the family who had trained his brother to be a great chef. At the same time he is training a young man to become a great chef...and he once more has a run in with his nephew who owns a restaurant.
Despite the fact that the film stops making sense in the second half I like this film a great deal. Watching the film on DVD I was all set for it to be one of the best films of the year, since for the first half hour this film is absolute dynamite. The trouble is that the film begins to slowly lose its way during the middle third as it tries to balance the "cooking karate kid" angle with the need to have some fights. Then pretty much all thought of the film really having a plot that makes sense, except on a larger level, goes out the window in the last half hour as the film shifts to the events around a cooking competition. It's here that the film effectively stops making any sense except that the thrust of the plot is such you know what its trying to do even though its screwing up the details.
And yet I still like the film. The reason I like the movie despite the utter break down of the plot is that the pieces that are on screen are actually really good, they just aren't stitched together very well. The cooking sequences are great, the fights are fun and most of all the characters are wonderful. Its all good even if the pieces are badly joined together. On some level I think that this film was suppose to be a half hour longer but the producer decided to go with a 90 minute movie and chopped the hell out of the second half of the movie.
While I can't recommend any part of the film other than the first half hour as being a must see, the rest of the film is worth the time and effort to make a bowl of popcorn and curl up with on the couch as a rental if nothing else.
Its the story of a chef who's nephew sets him up to take a fall at a banquet. Years later he ends up working for the family who had trained his brother to be a great chef. At the same time he is training a young man to become a great chef...and he once more has a run in with his nephew who owns a restaurant.
Despite the fact that the film stops making sense in the second half I like this film a great deal. Watching the film on DVD I was all set for it to be one of the best films of the year, since for the first half hour this film is absolute dynamite. The trouble is that the film begins to slowly lose its way during the middle third as it tries to balance the "cooking karate kid" angle with the need to have some fights. Then pretty much all thought of the film really having a plot that makes sense, except on a larger level, goes out the window in the last half hour as the film shifts to the events around a cooking competition. It's here that the film effectively stops making any sense except that the thrust of the plot is such you know what its trying to do even though its screwing up the details.
And yet I still like the film. The reason I like the movie despite the utter break down of the plot is that the pieces that are on screen are actually really good, they just aren't stitched together very well. The cooking sequences are great, the fights are fun and most of all the characters are wonderful. Its all good even if the pieces are badly joined together. On some level I think that this film was suppose to be a half hour longer but the producer decided to go with a 90 minute movie and chopped the hell out of the second half of the movie.
While I can't recommend any part of the film other than the first half hour as being a must see, the rest of the film is worth the time and effort to make a bowl of popcorn and curl up with on the couch as a rental if nothing else.