總舖師 (The moveable feast) is a Taiwanese comedy about food. This movie has another name, direct translate as "Zone Pro Site". lol! Mmmm, it doesn't accurately reflects the true pronunciation of 總舖師 in Hokkien. Anyway, it is a very good comedy, I laughed from the beginning till the end.
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| Poster taken from douban |
Apparently, the one who is in charge of a banquet is called 總舖師 in Taiwan. It can be loosely translated as chief chef. In the old days, when there were any happy and sad things (example: weddings, funerals, birthdays (70 years old or 80 years old)), the host will invite a chef to cook up a feast. All the ingredients would be prepared by the host and other utensils would come from the host and his neighbours (community spirit!). The only job the chef had to do was to cook. Nowadays, it is a totally different scenario, it is a huge business of catering, the chief chef will provide everything from the ingredients to the tools, including chairs, tables and tents.
Back to the story, XiaoWan is the only child of a famous banquet chef, Master Fly (蒼蠅師). Although her father hoped that she would take over the business, the only thing XiaoWan wanted to do was to become a model. So, although she kept failing in the entertainment business, she preserved and stayed in Taipei until her boyfriend borrowed a lot of money from Ah Long and disappeared. As his guarantor, XiaoWan was forced to take refuge in her hometown because she couldn't afford to pay the debt.
However, her mother was in huge debt too. In order to defend her father's reputation, her mother borrowed a lot of money to compete with her father's protégé who served MSG, canned food, etc to the unsuspecting customers. But, her mother was not very talented in culinary skill, she ended up losing everything.
So, XiaoWan and her mother hid in a small town and opened a small restaurant to survive. One day, an elderly couple found them and intended to hire them to cook for their wedding dinner. So, XiaoWan and her mother tried to recreate her father's famous dishes. They met a guy, RuHai, a 'gourmet doctor'. he helped them to recreate the recipes. XiaoWan and RuHai started to fall for each other. However, half way through, he left without saying goodbye to help his sifu. Then, the Ah Long duo managed to track down XiaoWan and forced her to pay the debt. At the end, they decided to participate in a 辦桌 (Bandoh - banquet) competition to win a big sum of money to pay the Ah Long.
They went to Taipei to join the competition. Since all of them were not very good in cooking, they practised very hard. The ending was surprising, they didn't win the competition. But it is a happy ending, sort of. The Ah Long duo turned out to be petty thieves who stole the agreement letter from the real Ah Long. They tried to extort money from XiaoWan using that agreement. However, after spending time with the family, they decided to tell the truth. At the end, the fake Ah Long duo worked in their restaurant. XiaoWan didn't mind that she didn't win the competition, she just wanted to live happily. Well, normally in this kind of movie, the hero or heroine will become a master or become very successful. So, it is quite refreshing to see this kind of ending. Oh, RuHai came back to find XiaoWan and they became a couple. It's quite sweet.
Although this is a very loud comedy, I think it is a meaningful movie.
Interesting titbits:
However, her mother was in huge debt too. In order to defend her father's reputation, her mother borrowed a lot of money to compete with her father's protégé who served MSG, canned food, etc to the unsuspecting customers. But, her mother was not very talented in culinary skill, she ended up losing everything.
So, XiaoWan and her mother hid in a small town and opened a small restaurant to survive. One day, an elderly couple found them and intended to hire them to cook for their wedding dinner. So, XiaoWan and her mother tried to recreate her father's famous dishes. They met a guy, RuHai, a 'gourmet doctor'. he helped them to recreate the recipes. XiaoWan and RuHai started to fall for each other. However, half way through, he left without saying goodbye to help his sifu. Then, the Ah Long duo managed to track down XiaoWan and forced her to pay the debt. At the end, they decided to participate in a 辦桌 (Bandoh - banquet) competition to win a big sum of money to pay the Ah Long.
They went to Taipei to join the competition. Since all of them were not very good in cooking, they practised very hard. The ending was surprising, they didn't win the competition. But it is a happy ending, sort of. The Ah Long duo turned out to be petty thieves who stole the agreement letter from the real Ah Long. They tried to extort money from XiaoWan using that agreement. However, after spending time with the family, they decided to tell the truth. At the end, the fake Ah Long duo worked in their restaurant. XiaoWan didn't mind that she didn't win the competition, she just wanted to live happily. Well, normally in this kind of movie, the hero or heroine will become a master or become very successful. So, it is quite refreshing to see this kind of ending. Oh, RuHai came back to find XiaoWan and they became a couple. It's quite sweet.
Although this is a very loud comedy, I think it is a meaningful movie.
Interesting titbits:
- 蒼蠅 means fly and the second word 蠅 is pronounced as 'xin' in Hokkien. It has a same sound as 神 (god) in Hokkien. In this movie, there were 3 kings of banquet, Master Dumb (憨人師), Master Ghost (鬼頭師) and Master Fly (蒼蠅師). Master Dumb is Human, Master Ghost is Ghost, Master Fly is God, so the 3 kings of banquet is called, Human, Ghost and God. Well, it is not funny in English, but in Hokkien, it is a very good pun.
- In this movie, one of the dish for the competition is made using bean sprouts. It is so special, food stuffs (I forgot what is the ingredients) were cut into thin small strands, and sewn into the bean sprouts. I doubted the existence of this dish, it is too time consuming to prepare, but my mom said that as long as there are people who are willing to pay for it, nothing is impossible. Well, correct also.
- The are many good lines in this movie, my favourite is this "Well, it's good to forget things in life, but luggage is really important. 人生，有些事情忘了也好，但是行李很重要". (My translation doesn't bring out the essence of that!)
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