Eat Drink Man Woman (1994)

            ‘Eat Drink Man Woman’ is a 1994 Taiwanese film directed by Ang Lee. This film received an Academy Award Nomination for Best Foreign Language Film in 1995. As the title suggest this film is basically about men and women’s basic desire in eating meat, drinking alcohol and having sexual pleasures. But the storyline of this film was written in appropriate family setting especially for Asian audiences. Late actor Sihung Lung stared in this film as Mr. Chu, a widowed father of three daughters.

            The film begins with as though it was a typical Chinese family in Taiwan following their own tradition which is every family members should present for Sunday Dinner. This film portrays different style in showing love compared to western where Mr. Chu didn’t speak up or tell verbally to his daughters that he loves them but he proved it by serving food to them during every Sunday Dinners and wash their cloths and arrange them in each daughter’s drawers respectively. It became a family tradition for them to do a big announcement during the Sunday Dinner. In the film, I can see few Sunday dinners but every time each member made an announcement, it will be much unexpected and will change the story line of the film to another direction.

            Talking about the first daughter, Chu Jia-Jen, she is a chemistry teacher and recently has converted to Christianity to find peace though the religion. She became a mother figure for her two younger sisters once her mother passed away. In the beginning of the film, we assume that she fails to find a romantic partner because of she was hearth broken by the serious break-up with her high school ex-boyfriend Li Kai. And she was intended to look after her father during his elder age. But towards the end of the film, it was revealed that she made-up these entire stories because she wants nobody force her to get married until she ready for that. And she did manage to find her romantic interest, Zhou Mingdao even though he is not Christian but she manages to persuade him to convert by end of the movie.

            The second daughter, Chu Jia-Chien is my favorite character among the three daughters not only because she is pretty but also she has unique personality. From the beginning, we understood that her relationship with her father is not very close and she wanted to move out from the house to a new apartment where she already invested most of her savings. She possesses the talent and passion from her father in cooking but her father did not allow her to become chef like himself but made her to become an airline executive. Even though there were so many arguments between them though out the film, it was shown clearly that both father and daughter have a special connection and caring due to most probably she looks exactly like her mother. And she proves her caring towards her father by turn down the offer of promotion to work in Amsterdam and she wants to take care of her father after both the other two daughters were move out from the house. She is one who desperately wanted to move out from house first but eventually she was the one stay until the end after everybody move out from the house including Mr. Chu by buying the house from him

            The third daughter, Chu Jia-Ning is my least favorite character in the film not only because she is immature but also she confiscated her friend’s boyfriend from her. Since the beginning of film, she is the one giving suggestions her friend on torturing the boyfriend by abandoning him and went to date with him instead of her place and sleep with him as well as carrying a baby for him. From what I observe, she tends to do things without thinking much about the consequences based on her desire. From Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalysis, the Id is perfectly can be used to explain her actions. Taking about Mr. Chu, at first I thought he was old and not capable for anything. I sense that he is hiding something inside by eating the lunches prepared by Liang Jin-Rong for her daughter by himself even though it’s taste bad. And he wanted all his daughters to find their own life and go separately (which he told Uncle Wen). It was twisted in the end that wanted to get married to Liang Jin-Rong and live a peaceful life with her.

            I saw application of ‘Classical Conditioning’ in one scene, where Uncle Wen tastes all the food cooked by Mr. Chu since the chief himself can’t taste it due to loss of his taste sensibility. After practicing this for quit sometime, Mr. Chu can able to perceive the taste of food by just looking at Uncle Wen’s face without Uncle Wen say anything. It is assumed that Uncle Wen’s face reaction has become Conditioned Stimulus for Mr. Chu to understand the food’s taste. And taking about the traffic scenes though out the film, my assumption is that director Ang Lee is trying to tell that life is like traffic where there will be some problems will hold us unmoved like traffic light but eventually we have to move on because the life journey won’t stop until we die.