Our screening on Friday 19 September will be introduced by Victor Fan (KCL).
Ang Lee’s generous, touching Eat Drink Man Woman focuses on master chef Chu and his three daughters (all of them living at home) as they confront seismic changes in their lives. The film is the third instalment in Ang Lee’s family trilogy, known unofficially (and ironically) as the 'Father Knows Best' series, largely because venerable actor Sihung Lung (whom Lee lured out of retirement) played a father in each film. Constructed around a series of all-in family dinners, where each of the characters eventually (very reluctantly) drops a bombshell announcement, the film hinges on the tension between modernity and tradition, family and personal freedom, and, especially, the necessity of confiding and sharing. With the profound empathy that typifies his best work, Lee drops us into the drama without much explanation and carefully disrupts our assumptions about the characters - and the narratives they construct about themselves.
