Tseng Chang is a great chef in Singapore, but he has no customers; his rare customer asks for the pork with less fat and he throws them out. His hope is that his grandson, Henry Lau, will get into a great engineering school. When his admiring landlord tells him that he is so far behind on the rent he will have to shut him down, Chang has a heart attack, and Lau sneaks into a television cooking competition in Shanghai, hoping to compete against master television chef Chin Han and win a million dollars to save the restaurant and grandfather he loves. But there is another story, of family and love and loss that is seen through the eyes of Han's girl friend and producer, Michelle Yeoh.
Movies about cooking have become their own genre over the last few decades. One of the pleasures of modern Asian movies is their free mixing of genres to produce something novel and involving -- like creative cooking. Gina Kim's movie is a feast, with its images of the crowded streets of old cities, the bright vistas of modern cities, the sumptuous splendor of food, and, of course, the pleasures of a sentimental story about people who love each other.
Movies about cooking have become their own genre over the last few decades. One of the pleasures of modern Asian movies is their free mixing of genres to produce something novel and involving -- like creative cooking. Gina Kim's movie is a feast, with its images of the crowded streets of old cities, the bright vistas of modern cities, the sumptuous splendor of food, and, of course, the pleasures of a sentimental story about people who love each other.