Eat Drink Man Woman - A Taiwanese Film By Ang Lee

The Hyderabad Film Club is screening a Vietnamese film, Eat Drink Man Woman (Yin Shi Nan Nu), on 24th November, at the Sarathi Studios in Ameerpet. The film is directed by Ang Lee, and has Sihung Lung, Kuei-Mei Yang, Chien-Lien Wu, Yu-Wen Wang, and Winston Chao playing the central characters.

Widower and Master Chef Chu lives in Taipei with his three unattached daughters, Jia-Ning (the youngest), Jia-Chien and Jia-Jen (the oldest). Chu lives to cook, principally as Head Chef in a prestigious city hotel, but also for his family. Indeed, the only contact he has with his offspring is over the gargantuan, gourmet meal he cooks every Sunday.

Even then, however, familial interaction is at a minimum, and should a daughter reveal an important event in her life with the declaration, "I have an announcement", there's no subsequent discussion or paternal interest. As for himself, aging Chu is losing zest for life. Even his sense of taste is fading. Meanwhile, his daughters are looking for love.

Jia-Jen, still traumatized from being dumped years previous, teaches chemistry at a men's college, and otherwise finds solace in a Christian brotherhood. Jia-Ning works at a Wendy's, and thinks her best friend's boyfriend is hot. Jia-Chien, an up-and-coming international airline executive, is attracted to the company's new business negotiator. Trouble is, he's the one that broke Jia-Jen's heart.

The third and final film in director Ang Lee's "Father Knows Best" trilogy, Eat Drink Man Woman is laugh-out-loud funny in its depiction of the foibles of the contemporary Taiwanese family. The film also movingly captures the complexities of modern life, the inevitability of change, and the necessity for Zen-like balance.

Please contact Bh S S Prakash Reddy of the Hyderabad Film Club at 2373-0841/93910-20243 for further details.