Course:ASIA325/2025/Kung Food: Intertextuality, Nostalgia, and the Carnivalesque in The God of Cookery

Kung Food: Intertextuality, Nostalgia, and the Carnivalesque in The God of Cookery

Group Members' Contributions

Section	Contributor(s)
Introduction	OH
Stories Behind the Film	OH
Histories of the Film Reception	OH
Scholarly Literature Review	NF
Comparative Analysis	ER
Alternative Interpretation	ER
Conclusion	NF
Additional work	Contributor(s)
Project management	NF
Film note taking	ER
Scholarly literature note taking	NF, ER
Editing	NF
Image formatting	ER, OH
Citation formatting	ER, OH
Comments/suggestions on Google Docs	NF, ER

Introduction

“The God of Cookery” (食神) was directed by Stephen Chow, and featured him in the title role, and premiered in December of 1996 just before the 1997 handover of Hong Kong. The film followed cinematic Chow's character - an arrogant celebrity chef - who is disgraced as a public figure and has to reinvent his culinary career through a reincarnation in Hong Kong street food, with Karen Mok as Turkey - a tough noodle vendor, and Ng Man-tat as the rival chef Bull Tong. The film contrasts Hong Kong's famous Tai Pak Floating Restaurant with the likes of Temple Street, thereby contrasting superficial fame against genuine community values. This film mixes absurd humor with a genuine transformation and becomes a multilayered text of intertextuality--he references martial arts tropes, food TV, and redemption narratives. The film's nonsensical visuals and harsh tone engage a carnivalesque and inversion of taste, class, and authority. The film nostalgia for local street food culture and humble authenticity with a respect for Hong Kong’s street food culture harkens back to a deeper nostalgia for pre handover Hong Kong Identities.

Movie poster for "The God of Cookery"

Tai Pak restaurant

Stories Behind the Film

Temple street Hong Kong

Tai Pak Floating Restaurant, which opened in 1952 in the Aberdeen Typhoon Shelter, was one of Hong Kong's first and most famous floating seafood restaurants that ultimately became part of the infamous Jumbo Kingdom commercial complex. The restaurant made an appearance in multiple films such as “Enter the Dragon” featuring Bruce Lee “The God of Cookery” showcases Tai Pak as the luxurious floating palace hosting the final cooking competition scene, signifying the protagonist's return to the culinary industry. Temple Street also  referred to as Hong Kong’s "Men’s Club" is one heavily immersed in community culture with its lively dai pai dong stalls, fortune tellers, and opera performances. In “The God of Cookery” The cinematic Chow's fall from chef superstardom materializes here, where the unsettling but full of life street market marks the start of  his transformation. In the steam and hustle, he finds real cookery, unlike the reality television show he has been milking money from, but real, earthy, honest food, an idea that typifies Temple Street, the epitome of authentic, everyday life in Hong Kong.

Histories of the Film’s Reception

The public’s opinion for “The God of Cookery” shows their admiration for Stephen Chow’s ability to blend nostalgia, life lessons and comedy into his work, it has earned the impressive ratings of 8.2 out of 10 on Douban, with 56,930 ratings and almost 80% of them being 4 or 5 stars. Users cite the iconic dishes "Sorrowful Rice" and "Pissing Beef Balls" as the symbol of their culture “黯然销魂饭，撒尿牛丸，全是爱” (Sorrowful Rice, Pissing Beef Ball, all is love) Another mentioned how Stephen chow’s style in directing movies is to have the protagonist go through ups and downs in their life and eventually learning from their mistakes, they can become the best versions of themselves. “星爷作品的魅力就在于，从人小物跌宕起伏的人生中，领悟成功的真谛只有一条：把自己份内的事情做到极致，那你就离成功不远了”(Chow's work charm lies in the ups and downs in life, we can understand that there is only one true meaning of success: do your job to the utmost, and you will be close to success).

The creation of the "Pissing Beef Ball"

While the movie received a lot of praise from the locals, the Western audience found it repetitive to his other work: “This movie written, directed, and starred by Stephen Chow follows pretty much the same formula as Shaolin Soccer and Kung Fu Hustle, only this one's about cooking. Humor is the same as well - mostly weird and unnecessarily violent, and at times just genuinely laugh-out-loud hilarious.”  The western culture may not view the movie the same way or understand it like the locals do because of cultural differences. This was further proven when another person commented “I.. have no idea what i just watched.” and gave it a 1.5 star review. The reviews between both cultures shows that even though Stephen Chow’s films may be admired by many, it is still an acquired taste, but these comments were made in a different time, while the local comments were made in the early 2000’s the comments on rotten tomatoes were made in the 2010’s, the way people perceive comedy could be different in a decade’s time.

The events leading up to the handover of Hong Kong that ended the British rule on the evening of June 30th 1997, was the same path cinematic Chow had to go through in the film, cinematic cinematic Chow being kicked down from the culinary hierarchy is the reflection of Hong Kong losing control of the British. During the 156 years of British rule, Hong Kong’s local residents faced social and economic inequalities, such as corruption in the government, police force, and discrimination.

The Handover of Hong Kong

Scholarly Literature Review

The Cinema of Stephen Chow is an excellent scholarly source on Chow, of which we will be outlining three chapters focusing on the kung fu dimension of Chow’s works.

In Chapter 7, “Descendant of the Dragon: Stephen Chow, Postmodernism, and the Legacy of Bruce Lee,” with the aim of coming to understand “the Chowness of Chow” (150), Kyle Barrowman discusses grafting, a particular form of intertextuality that involves a “not merely paying homage to a preexisting text but specifically [involves] elaborating [on] the same theme or message [...and is] the process of taking a (piece of a) preexisting text . . . and inserting it into another text in which it continues to grow,” thus expanding on an idea rather than simply parodying it (154-156). Relevantly, Barrowman notes that in 1990s Hong Kong, “filmmakers began . . . to take Hong Kong cinema itself as their cinematic subject matter,” with Lee being Chow’s choice of subject matter (148). In particular, Borrowman observes that Chow not only frequently references Bruce Lee, but he also grafts his “starteur” personality with that of Lee’s, “starteur” being defined by Barrowman as “iconic movie stars . . . who sagaciously mov[e] behind the camera and beg[i]n to (re)shape their own star personas as filmmakers” (149-150). Beside’s Chow’s admiration of Lee, frequent utilization of characters that have “put time and effort into something at which they have cultivated remarkable skill” can be interpreted as a kung fu theme, as in Chinese, “kung fu . . . more expansively denotes effort, time, and skill” (159). Borrowman thus observes the strong influence of both Bruce Lee and themes of kung fu throughout Chow’s works, and determines their inclusion to be a “grafting” form of intertextuality.

In Chapter 8, “Way of the Intercepting Pun: Language and the Body in Stephen Chow’s Carnival of Kung Fu,” Luke White utilizes the Bakhtinian concept of the carnivalesque, based in the idea of the “grotesque . . . disorderly body [which] is always passing beyond its own limits in joyous abjection, reveling in the most basic functions of life, and resisting any call to proper form or ideal order [...such as] social and political domination,” to invoke the concept of the “kung fu carnival,” in reference to kung fu comedy films such as those of Chow’s (170). The carnivalesque protagonists of such films are typically the opposite of “the dignified Confucian teacher,” as they are not “morally upright,” will do whatever it takes to win, and they are also transgressive in terms of physique, being portrayed as sickly, conventionally unattractive, and so on (171). White translates this idea of the carnivalesque body to Chow’s use of mo lei tau humour, as it is a highly localized form of humour that, like kung fu comedies, “shift from a national imaginary to a local one” in that rather than “offering stories of national heroism, [they] presen[t] tales of anarchic independence which [are] specifically set in the rural world of southern China,” thus resulting in mo lei tau “cannibaliz[ing] and satiriz[ing] all official (or ‘high’) discourse, making a space for a popular subject to exist at a critical distance from the cultures imposed from above,” not unlike how the carnivalesque resists high culture (173-174). White attributes this rising popularity of low culture to a sense of statelessness among Hong Kongers due to the rise of a Hong Kong-born population, the increase of Cantonese-language local media (especially comedy and martial arts dramas), the Westernization of Hong Kong, and anxiety both about the Cultural Revolution and the upcoming 1997 handover (174-175). Similar to Barrowman in the previous chapter, White also makes the point that “kung fu refers ambiguously to both skills in combat and more generally to any mastery developed through sustained effort and self-transformation,” thus providing the alternative interpretation that mo lei tau could be seen as a mastery of words, which, in the Chinese cultural context is more closely associated with wen (the literati, high culture) as opposed to wu (the martial, low culture) high (177). White thus observes the various juxtapositions Chow employs in his work — comedy and kung fu; verbal and physical comedy; martial and comic performance; high and low culture; scholarly (wen) and martial (wu) (166).

In Chapter 9, “‘Bruce Lee Is My Idol’: Kung Fu Comedy, Nonsense, and Nostalgia,” Wayne Wong critiques previous scholars’ invocation of the carnivalesque in relation to kung fu comedy, “which traditionally emphasizes the subversive, indolent, and vulgar dimensions,” and due to the theory being originally situated in a European Middle Ages context, does not take into consideration the period and locale of other contexts (183, 186). Instead, Wong brings focus to “nonsensical kung fu,” which he interprets as Chow’s “personal and ritualistic homage to his childhood hero, Bruce Lee” and which shows Chow’s “deep sense of pride in commemorating and reaffirming the golden era of the martial arts genre in the 1970s” (183, 191). This interpretation is situated in Chow’s contribution to the rise of nostalgia in Hong Kong cinema, where “films tapped into a shared cultural memory that resonated primarily with Hong Kong inhabitants,” as Chow’s “comedic style . . . emanates a profound sense of nostalgia and intertextuality, particularly when Chow synthesizes kung fu with his nonsense comedy,” as it evokes nostalgia in local viewers for older Hong Kong cinema, and “elabl[es] the diverse and marginalized local population to assert and articulate their voices, memories, and sentiments from a position of societal underrepresentation” (189, 187). Wong questions the possibility for Chow’s nonsensical verbal comedy (mo lei tau) to reach a wider audience and invoke this nostalgia in more viewers, as “even for proficient Cantonese speakers, comprehension of Chow’s inside jokes, insinuations, and double entendres requires up-to-date familiarity with the language’s daily and colloquial usage” (188). It is believed that this is a key reason for Chow later pivoting to a focus on nonsensical kung fu, as through the “strategy of employing universally recognizable visual references [the humour] resonant[s] with both local and global audiences,”  thus allowing for the possibility for “shared cultural memory [to] simultaneously be local and global in nature” (190). Wong thus asserts that Chow has innovated on and promoted Hong Kong cinema, both locally, through linguistic and intertextual knowledge, as well as globally, through universally understood visual humour.

We will now give special attention to Chapter 14 from Food, Film & Culture: A Genre Study, “Food Fights: The Martial Chefs and the Magical Arts of Asian Cinema,” in which James R. Keller analyzes and compares three Hong Kong films that intertwine cooking and combat — The God of Cookery (1996), The Chinese Feast (1995), and The Magic Kitchen (2004). I will solely be focusing on Keller’s analysis of The God of Cookery. One key hypothesis of Keller’s is that The God of Cookery is a “meta-cinematic commentary” in that the cooking program in the film (also titled The God of Cookery) is a direct parallel to the film itself, as in both, Chow is the star and runs the show, cooking is not unlike filmmaking in that it “requires the collection and arrangement of diverse sounds and images into an aesthetically pleasing narrative, prepared for the consumption of an audience hungry for entertainment,” and further, the cinematic Chow’s process of learning to cook with heart mirrors the process of the real Chow “creat[ing] a movie with heart” (178-179, 189). Keller notably observes the use of a “heart” motif throughout the film, such as when the cinematic Chow creates a dessert in the shape of the hanzi for “heart” and claims “We must rely on our heart to make the perfect dish” (with the irony being that he is heartless at this early point in the film), which contrasts with Tong’s creation of a heart-shaped noodle dish later in the film, making a similar claim that one must “have the heart to cook” (adding to the irony, as Tong, too, turns out to be heartless) (178-179). Not just in this film, but in all of the three movies being compared, the chef protagonists “conclude that they must emphasize interpersonal relationships over culinary competitiveness and pride. Cooking is labor on behalf of others, a facilitation of the enjoyment and sustenance of others, and those others must be the primary focus of the endeavor,” and in the case of The God of Cookery, this realization is heavily contrasted with the cinematic Chow’s initial heartlessness (187).

Keller then outlines three capitalism-related interpretations. First, he posits that the film parallels Hong Kong’s communist-capitalist, Chinese-British dual reality, as “the villainy and greed of the food moguls is contrasted with the ingenuity, skill, and enthusiasm of the masses who stage their own challenge to the rule of large corporations,” thus framing Turkey and her peers as the anti-capitalist proletariat (179-181). Second, that “Chow’s fall from power and affluence deposits him in an even more brutal and competitive food market,” thus framing Temple Street as another side of the same capitalist coin (179). Third, that “the opulent, arrogant, and insensitive lifestyle of the food mogul is rejected . . . when Chow embraces Buddhist virtues of simplicity, humility, poverty, and serenity,” thus framing Buddhism as anti-capitalist and spiritually nutritious (181). Finally, Keller highlights the “magical” aspect of these culinary combat films, as in their nature-defying displays of kung food mastery, “as is common in the magical realist aesthetic, the mundane is transformed through hyperbole or sometimes through the literalization of figures of speech until it resembles the mythic and the heroic,” thus satisfying audiences in their endless hunger for a greater spectacle (177, 180-181).

Comparative Analysis: Kung Fu Chefs (2009)

Kung Fu Chefs Film Poster

Kung Fu Chefs is a 2009 Hong Kong action/comedy film directed by Wing-Kin Yip, and follows disgraced chef and village chief Wong Ping Yee (Sammo Hung) who is forced to leave his town after his cooking is sabotaged by his nephew Wong Kai Joe (Louis Fan) and leaves the entire village sick. The outcast chef then meets restaurant owners and sisters Shum Ching (Cherrie Ying) and Shum Ying (Ai Kago) and decides to help them save their restaurant while also training a young Kung Fu and cooking graduate Lung Kin-Yat (Vanness Wu) to compete in a Top Chef cooking competition against the head chef from a rival restaurant run by Yee’s nephew and nemesis.

Similarities

Intertextuality Through Casting and Parody

Intertextuality is an important concept in both The God of Cookery and Kung Fu Chefs. Stephen Chow is well-known for his intertextual casting in which he reuses actors from his previous films, and even plays himself as the star persona which Srinivas describes in his article “Kung Fu Hustle: A Note on the Local” as a critical element of predictability and familiarity that Chow is known and loved for. A scene from the film that speaks to this intertextuality through parody is when Chow discusses his experience at Shaolin Monastery where he learned to cook and found discipline. The rival chef, Bull Tong, also went to Shaolin Monastery, but did not complete his training. As the two begin to cook, they integrate their cooking skills with kung fu and call out specific moves, which Luke White explains in his chapter “Way of Intercepting the Pun: Language and the Body in Stephen Chow’s Carnival of Kung Fu” in The Cinema of Stephen Chow is a common device used in classic kung fu film/s, and when the chefs call out techniques such as “eighteen-style frying” and “dog-beating stick,” parody martial arts techniques from a wuxia novel, Legend of the Condor Heroes by Jin Yong.

Still from the cutting skills test in Kung Fu Chefs with Sammo Hung in the background

In Kung Fu Chefs, intertextuality is also seen in the casting of the film. Sammo Hung, who plays the role of Wong Ping-Yee, the disgraced chef, is a well known martial artist in Hong Kong and China, and choreographed fights for the likes of Jackie Chan. His includion in the movie may be the director'ss attempt to integrate classic old-school kung fu choreography into his movie, creating an intertextual element by connecting it to past decades. In terms of parody, appears to parody The God of Cookery. The cooking competition mise-en-scène of the two films feels almost identical, with big medals, crisp, white chef uniforms, and mouthwatering food, such Buddha Jumps Over the Wall, which is the competitor's dish in both films. However, what ties this film to God of Cookery intertextually is the scene that focuses on cutting techniques, when Lung Kin-Yat must prove his cutting skills to his new master Wong Ping-Yee. They both call out their different techniques, similar to the scene mentioned above that ties God of Cookery to the wuxia novel. It showcases the continuation and recycling that takes place within film and media, as generations of directors and artists build off of their predecessors.

The Theme of Cooking Simple Dishes to Present Moral Lessons to Viewers

"Sorrowful Rice" from The God of Cookery

In both The God of Cookery and Kung Fu Chefs, the cooking of simple dishes plays an important role in presenting important moral lessons at the end of the films. In The God of Cookery, making the Sorrowful Rice for the competition represents Stephen Chow's emotion and personal transformation, as he has finally learned to cook from the heart — something he only learned to do once he lost everything and fell in love. Cooking from the heart, as well as heart motifs are a common theme in the film, and it is only once Chow loved and grieved someone that he is able to create something truly delicious. Had he stayed at the top as a celebrity chef, only focused on profit, he never would have experienced heartbreak, and in turn, learned how to cook dishes that meant something to him.

Cabbage Soup from Kung Fu Chefs

In Kung Fu Chefs, cooking the cabbage soup in the final round represented Lung Kin-Yats mastery of cooking, as he finally understood the value of taking cheap ingredients and making something spectacular from it. This lesson taught him that delicious food comes from the skill that one possesses, which requires training and discipline. Both the sorrowful rice and the cabbage soup were competing against Buddha Jumps Over the Wall, an impressive dish that takes days to create, and a multitude of expensive and flavourful ingredients. In both cases, the simpler dishes were more delicious to the judges, and made them think about their own morals and importance of the dishes, and the cabbage soup from Kung Fu Chefs especially highlighted how mastery of a skill is often more important than trying to impress people with fancy ingredients and intricate preparation.

Similar Storylines and Plots

The storylines of both The God of Cookery and Kung Fu Chefs are quite similar, despite the differences in the themes, tone and overall aesthetics of the two films. Both films follow the downfall of successful chefs who must compete in a cooking competition against the person who sabotaged them to regain their titles and beat the bad guy. Both themes follow a typical kung fu movie plot, with kung fu training montages, a kung fu master, temples, and epic fights to determine the righteous winner. The scene that felt the most similar was the initial sabotage scene from both movies. In The God of Cookery. Stephen Chow is forced to close his restaurants when his business partner who is in cahoots with his assistant purposefully sells him bad beef which leads to over 50 people getting food poisoning. In Kung Fu Chefs, the village chief and master chef Wong Ping-Yee is sabotaged by his nephew who places poison in the salt that Wong Ping-Yee uses to season the pork dish at a village banquet, which leaves everyone sick. These sabotages force the protagonists to leave the comfort of their lives and forces them to branch out to areas they would never normally go, leading to new friendships and opportunities to avenge their titles, support new friends, and banish evil.

Differences

The Carnivalesque Competition: Comedic Kung Fu Kitchen Chaos vs. Disciplined Duels

Stephen Chow during the cooking competition in The God of Cookery

In The God of Cookery, kung fu skills are intertwined with cooking scenes. During the final competition scene between Stephen Chow and his rival, the two chefs are encouraged by the judge to show off their mastery of kung fu skills while they cook. Faucon breaks down this fight scene, describing how the basic Chinese culinary techniques of frying, chopping, and slicing are shown and praised by the judge as well as their blending with other kung fu techniques such as flying, “fire punch,” expressing inner strength, and the flying chair technique. During this cooking competition, the characters also change from their chef outfits into martial arts clothing, setting the scene for a fight. The scene becomes carnivalesque when Bull Tong complains that Chow is copying him by making the same dish and Chow responds by sticking his tongue out at him in a childlike way. This humour is a key element of the carnivalesque as described by White, who states that the “grotesque body” is the heart of carnival as it is disorderly and passes beyond its own limits. There is knife throwing, chairs used as weapons, and flying across rooms which adds to the carnivalesque humour, blending physical comedy and cooking.

The professional atmosphere of the Kung Fu Chefs cooking competition

In comparison, Kung Fu Chefs cooking competition scenes are much more reserved and reminiscent of a professional cooking show. The film shots focus on capturing the process, presentation and cooking skills and there is no kung fu fighting or techniques used to enhance the food or fight rivals. This scene is purely about cooking good food. However, the scene cuts back and forth between the cooking competition and a kung fu fight that is taking place simultaneously at another location, in which Wong Ping-Yee is fighting his nephew and his gang. In comparison to the cooking scene, the fight scene is jarring, loud and dynamic. It looks like a classic kung fu fight with swords, high kicks, and stunts which allows Sammo Hung to show off his decades of martial arts choreography. These scenes are not comedic or carnivalesque, they purely focus on showcasing the two separate arts that are taking place and the discipline of the chefs as well as the kung fu fighters.

Themes of Filial Piety and Brotherhood vs. Consumerism and Capitalism

Wong Ping-Yee and his brother passing down the Dragon Head Cleaver in Kung Fu Chefs

Another difference between the two films can be seen by examining the relationships within the films which are based on popular kung fu tropes. Lu Zhouxiang mentions some common kung fu tropes in their book Chinese National Identity in the Age of Globalisation claiming that filial piety, honour, and brotherhood are popular storylines and can be seen in classic kung fu films such as Fist of Fury and Way of the Dragon. When we examine Kung Fu Chefs, the theme of the movie stays true to the classic kung fu genre. The fallen master (Wong Ping Yee) is sabotaged by his jealous nephew who believes his own family line is the rightful heir of the dragon head blade. This leads to a family rivalry throughout the film, concluding with the scene near the end of the movie where Wong Ping Yee's brother comes out after the cooking competition and agrees that Wong Ping Yee’s student, Lung Kin-Yat should be the rightful heir of the blade, not his own son who has been dishonourable. This scene solidifies the filial piety and brotherhood between the two siblings, who believe in bestowing honour and passing down kung fu skills and cooking knowledge only to those deserving of it.

Discussing the future of Pissing Beef Balls in God of Cookery

The Pissing Beef Balls food stall in The God of Cookery

In The God of Cookery, there is no filial piety or family dynamics that drives the storyline. Instead, the film explores themes of success and capitalism. White explains that Stephen Chow is known for his character tropes which often involve a “privileged playboy” who loses it all and must transform himself physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Stephen Chow plays a wealthy celebrity chef and restaurateur who has no respect or loyalty for anyone. The cooking competition is a chance for the disgraced Stephen Chow to regain his lost celebrity chef status. Levent Selman Goktas states in his article “Culinary Culture and Social Identity in Cinema: Comparative Analysis of Gastronomy-Themed Films” that “God of Cookery parodies the intense drama of the food world.” A scene within the film that highlights the parody of consumerism, celebrity chefdom and capitalism is when Turkey, Stephen Chow and Goosehead are discussing the future of their Pissing Beef Balls empire. The tone and atmosphere of the scene feels dark and ominous as they laugh maniacally, dreaming of stocks, restaurants, real estate, and becoming so rich they no longer have to work .

Mise-en-Scène and Tone of the Kitchen

One final difference between The God of Cookery and Kung Fu Chefs can be seen in how each film presents kitchen spaces and food preparation through the tone and mise-en-scène. In The God of Cookery, the kitchen space that Turkey uses to prep the newly invented “pissing beef balls” is presented as a makeshift street stall in a rundown area of Hong Kong, possibly somewhere along Temple Street. The scene is chaotic. Turkey sits outside and pounds meat while yelling, the meat is flying everywhere, the kitchen space looks cramped and messy, and the non-diegetic music sounds disjointed and circus-like, which adds to the carnivalesque nature of the scene. The scene ends with a master shot showing the market stall and Turkey and her crew eagerly awaiting guests. It feels energetic, with everyone posing and flexing exaggeratedly while laughing and squatting on chairs and tables, excited by the possibility of getting rich quick.

Shum's restaurant kitchen from Kung Fu Chefs

Shum’s restaurant kitchen in Kung Fu Chefs is the opposite. The building that the restaurant is in is modern, with a large blinking neon sign and a clean street filled with palm trees. Inside, the kitchen itself is incredibly modern with stainless steel covering every surface and an almost clinical atmosphere. The chefs are wearing high end uniforms with the traditional tall toque blanche and jacket. Music and sound in this scene is particularly interesting as it is a mix of diegetic kitchen noise such as chopping, running water, and stirring pots coming together with the non-diegetic music of percussion instruments to form a source score. This scene presents the kitchen as a space of ceremony, hierarchy and structure while the scene from The God of Cookery presents the kitchen as a space of chaotic energy, improvisation, and hard work from the bottom up.

Alternative Interpretation: Food as a Function of Self-expression and Emotional Release

This alternative analysis will revise the claim made by James R. Keller which stated that the preparation of food in The God of Cookery is representative of transformation — changing from a symbol of competition and pride to representing the importance of interpersonal relationships. We aim to build upon this claim, acknowledging that in conjunction with representing a transformative symbol of personal growth, food from the film also evokes strong emotional reactions and provides an outlet for emotional release. The cinematic Chow undergoes major personal growth in the film, starting out as a cruel celebrity chef with no respect or care for the people around him. His fall from fame and fortune is his catalyst for personal change, encouraging him to learn how to cook from the heart for the people he cares about, and discovering the true purpose of food.

We will focus on two scenes in the film that feature “Sorrowful Rice,” a simple, yet (now) iconic Hong Kong dish. Despite the dish's simplicity, it has the power to change how Chow regards the world around him and how he treats others. It also elicits an strong emotional response, reminding the characters of their past transgressions, often leading to a release of emotions. According to Goktas, the preparation and use of food in film highlights how food fulfills the physical need to eat, and also provides a form of emotional expression..

Scene 1: Turkey Offers Stephen Chow a Bowl of Char Siu and Rice (31:20-32:52)

Stephen Chow sheds a single tear after trying Turkey's Char Siu in The God of Cookery (32:28)

In this defining scene, the viewer sees Stephen Chow’s lowest moment and the key point where his outlook on life changes, and he decides to start over. We see Chow is badly beaten and lies unmoving on the concrete of a dirty alleyway full of rats and garbage. The setting and lighting are dark, with blue shadows creating a melancholic and cold scene, and the shot remains static on Chow’s still body as time passes. A woman comes and collects baskets without acknowledging his presence, and later, a man stops to pee near Chow's motionless body. Chow is now getting a taste of his own medicine: nobody knows who he is, and nobody cares.

The film utilizes medium close-up shots when Turkey comes to wake Chow, alternating between the two as they speak, with a high-angle shot as Turkey looks down at Chow, and a low-angle shot as Chow looks up at her. This use of angles places Turkey in a position of power over Chow, contrasting a previous scene where Chow looked down on her, judging her cooking, appearance, and food stall; in this scene, the dynamics have shifted.

As Chow grabs the bowl of char siu from Turkey, the camera shifts to an extreme close-up of the dish. Faucon explains this is a film technique which gives the illusion of touching the food with the eyes, almost allowing the viewer to visually penetrate the material and texture of the food (para 14). As Chow tastes the food, the camera shifts to a close up of Chow’s face, where we see a single tear fall from his eye. Chow's open emotional response is what leads to his personal growth, as this is the first time he reflects on his past and lets himself feel, evoked by delicious food.

Scene 2: The Judge of the Cooking Competition is Emotional After Tasting the "Sorrowful Rice" (1:23:51- 1:25:07 )

The judge sheds a tear after eating Stephen Chow's "Sorrowful Rice" in The God of Cookery (1:23:51)

This scene showcases the continuity of emotion that the “Sorrowful Rice” elicits in those who eat it. In Scene 1, Turkey’s char siu that evoked such a strong emotion from Chow. In this scene, the dish has been transformed by Chow into “Sorrowful Rice” and infused with his emotion and self-expression. The scene starts with an extreme closeup of the judge's face and a single tear falls down her cheek as she lies on the floor, mirroring Chow's reaction after he ate the char siu. This shows the powerful, raw emotion that the dish has had on the judge. She jumps back into her seat where we see her struggling with her emotions as she audibly shifts between being touched by the quality of the food while also feeling an extreme sense of sorrow and regret.

There is a shift into flashbacks from negative moments in the judge's life, the first being when her husband is caught cheating with another woman as cameras catch them in the act, and then another where she is caught cheating during a game of mahjong. We also see the camera shift from a close up of the judge to her son, who is at the competition and standing with the a Hong Kong triad, clearly under their influence. The scene functions to show that the judge now feels regretful that she has allowed herself to become who Chow used to be. Unfortunately, the judge has not undergone a spiritual and emotional transformation like Chow has; instead, she can only reflect on her past, acknowledge her poor choices, and give into the triad's bribe to declare Bull Tong the winner.

Conclusion

Overall, the film was more warmly received by Chinese-speaking viewers who were better situated to understand the film's many local references, such as the mo lei tau humour and intertextuality with older kung fu comedy films; meanwhile, English-speaking viewers tended to rate the film more poorly, as the local references and language play went over their heads. As a group, we enjoyed the film's focus on cuisine (familiar and comforting to some of us, foreign and intruiging to others) and the film's amusing combination of physics-defying kung fu and cooking, though the mo lei tau humour went over most of our heads. Naturally, we would recommend this film to lovers of cooking and kung fu, and we would also recommend it to those who love a good redemption story — especially one that is paired with the absurd. Due to the film's heavy use of mo lei tau humour, we would caution non-speakers of Cantonese to expect moments of confusion and to not fully understand Chow's comedic intent, and perhaps even recommend watching the film with a Cantonese speaker who is able to explain linguistic aspects of the humour.

References

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