Eat Drink Man Woman (Chinese: 飲食男女) is a 1994 comedy-drama film directed by Ang Lee, from a script co-written with James Schamus and Hui-Ling Wang.
[10] The title is a quote from the Book of Rites, one of the Confucian classics, referring to the basic human desires and accepting them as natural.
The beginning of the quote reads as follows: “The things which men greatly desire are comprehended in food and drink and sexual pleasure.”[a][11] On a Sunday evening in Taipei, semi-retired chef and widower Zhu prepares a feast for his three daughters.
Jin-Rong vocalizes her difficulties with a messy divorce while being responsible for work, Shan-Shan, and her opinionated mother, Madame Liang, as she returns to Taipei from America.
Troubled, Mr. Zhu begins to confide in and meet Madame Liang, leading the daughters to believe that the two are romantically involved.
Later, Jia-Ning and Guo-Lun have their baby, Jia-Jen converts Ming-Dao to Christianity, and Mr. Zhu sells the family home and buys a condo with Jin-Rong and Shan-Shan.
Wei Ming Dariotis and Eileen Fung, authors of "Breaking the Soy Sauce Jar: Diaspora and Displacement in the Films of Ang Lee", wrote that Jia-Jen's story is that of a "spinster turned sensual woman".
At the beginning of the film, Zhu’s family struggles between maintaining the banquet (eat and drink) and their sexual desire (man and woman).
The opening sequence - in which a Sunday lunch is lovingly prepared - took over a week to film and was accomplished with the use of an actual master chef, who doubled for actor Sihung Lung.
The musical score was composed by French musician Thierry Schollhammer, credited under the mononym "Mader",[16] and arranged by Sarah Plant.
[17] Included in the film but not on the soundtrack, are several Mandopop tracks and classical excerpts from "Israel in Egypt", "All Creatures of Our God and King", and "Quattro pezzi sacri."
She wrote, "Wonderfully seductive, and nicely knowing about all of its characters' appetites, Eat Drink Man Woman makes for an uncomplicatedly pleasant experience".
[20] In his review in The Washington Post, Hal Hinson called the film a "beautiful balance of elements ... mellow, harmonious and poignantly funny".
The site's critics consensus reads, "A richly layered look at the complex interactions between a widowed chef and his daughters, Ang Lee's generational comedy Eat Drink Man Woman offers filmgoers a tasty cinematic treat.
"[6] Tortilla Soup, a 2001 American comedy-drama film directed by Maria Ripoll, is based on Eat Drink Man Woman.
A semi-sequel, Eat Drink Man Woman 2012 [饮食男女2012] (billed as Joyful Reunion in English) was released, with Jui-Yuan Tsao, producer for the original film, serving as director,[22] and a new set of characters exploring similar themes.
With a total runtime of 160 minutes, the production strived to showcase as many iconic aspects from Ang Lee's film, such as the character's unique qualities and the beauty of food, through song and dance as possible.
[25] Eat Drink Man Woman is Ang Lee’s third feature film and forms the final part of his ‘Father Knows Best’ Trilogy, following Pushing Hands (1991) and The Wedding Banquet (1993).
All three films depict a clash between cultures like youth and old age, tradition and progress, east and west, and investigate the freedoms and constraints inherent in family structures particularly those between fathers, daughters and sons.
[26] Si-hung Lung takes the place of a father in all three films - here as Mr. Zhu, a retired master chef - and He had used it as the motif (idealization of the household's head) to resolve all the contradictions and conflict that happened within the family members.