"I've Been Working All My Life...Now I Have Forgotten How To Do That"
First of all, my apology to Ang Lee...more later.I put off watching this movie due to the fact that I figured it was a "copy" of Eat Drink Man Woman (1994) with a few changes, the same way Moon Lovers: Scarlet Heart Ryeo (2016) was basically a carbon copy of Scarlet Heart (2011) with a few plot changes...
Boy, was I wrong!
First the similarities between the two Eat Drink Man Woman movies:
Both deal with a father of 2 or more female kids, who are at ages where their lives are becoming less dependent on their fathers...
Both deal with a "getting old" father who has came to a turning point in his life, the first no longer to 'taste' the food he is preparing properly and the second forgetting the "small" details in his cooking, and his life!
In both movies, the single father has a problem with talking about important "issues" affecting him and his daughters (I said in the review of Eat Drink Man Woman (1994) that I felt the father's inability to 'talk' to his female daughters probably led to his pouring his love into cooking for them instead); in both movies their daughters are also better educated that their father's generation and also have a different outlook on life in general.
In the 2nd version, the father would not tell his daughters about his medial diagnosis, until it started making them worry about him.
There is no returning cast members or director between the two movies but they both leave you with a sense of tranquility and that "everything is gonna be alright" for the households of both movies.
Both movies had actors/actresses who made you feel they were part of a established family the way they responded to each other, in the range of the director's wishes.
Supporting cast in both movies were excellent in their individual side stories and their support of the main story being told by the main actors/actresses...
Let me get back to Ang Lee: I want to apologize to him since i am giving EDMW-2 a higher rating that his original movie, but only by 0.5 of a point!
Ang Lee is known for his 'twists' he throws in his movies just after you think you have figured out everything about his movie and you have already told your friends how the movie is going to end: EDMW is a typical example of this.
However, the 2nd version has a more melodramatic 'twist' one that is sure to send some women into their tissue supply!
Tang Shi Zhe [Wa Er's father/restaurant owner] (Kenneth Tsang) did an excellent job of playing the head of the Tang family; and an even better job of "remembering' something from the past that he thought would never need to remember again, and Gui Ya Lei (Bai Ping) played a magnificent job being a pain to Tang Wa'er (Huo Si Yan) the manager of an exclusive spa and the girlfriend of Gui Ya Lei's "son" Zhang Quan (Blue Lan), who gave Shi Zje the 'reason' for remembering his past at the most opportune time!
Blue Lan did an excellent job portraying the computer-nerd boyfriend of Tang Wa'er, to the point I was yelling at Tang Wa'er to dump the jerk! However, he did redeem himself in the end and saved his relationship.
The 'twist' that director Tsao Jui-Yuan placed his 'twist' just at the right location and I experienced a great emotional catharsis for the couple reuniting after many, many decades!
It left me with such a sense of emotional euphoria and well-being that i wanted the movie to go on and show more of the three couples as they grew together in their personal lives!
I recommend a full box of Kleenex, especially for the last half of the movie.
I am going to look for more Tsao Jui-Yuan movies online as well.
RE-WATCH VALUE: Yes, especially with a good female friend
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