Sik-gaek

Le Grand Chef is a film about cooking. That's not necessarily a bad thing in itself, taking its origins from what appears to be a popular comic book. It's comic book origins are very apparent in the film, from framing choices to character development to story progression. Unfortunately, in its adaptation, the film appears to try too hard to make it a comic book in movie form and leaves the dynamism of cinema behind.

The story is about a young man, who, outcast from his culinary school as a result of accidentally poisoning food tasters with golden blowfish sashimi, is recruited into a culinary competition to win the title of the greatest Corean chef and claim a historically important cooking blade, belonging to the last royal chef. Or something like that. He is rivaled by the heir to the school he got kicked out of and there are a number of supporting characters.

I think one of the problems with this film is that it compressed a comic book series into a film and tried to pack in as much as it could and also played it as close to the comic book as possible. Unfortunately, it makes the film seem a bit like an anime series in fast forward. The story itself is very comic book-like, with lots of subplots and hidden revelations that aren't exactly necessary. Consequently, we don't see a lot of character development, but rather character revelations instead, as they or we learn about their background (sigh, in flashback). Ultimately, it leads the characters and the overall story to seem more than a little two dimensional.

Another thing that surprised me was how a film about cooking can fail to make the photography of the process of cooking all that interesting. There are plenty of other films with cooking themes that do this very well. Granted, I could see that a lot of the framing was probably taken from the comic book itself, but I feel that there is a place to copy and a place to use the strength of the cinematic medium and this film relies too heavily on the former.

In the end, I imagine it would be more worthwhile to read the comic book series instead. With such a two dimensional story, characters, pacing, and uninspired photography and merely adequate performances from the players, there isn't much here to recommend. On the other hand, production specs are good and the film isn't ugly. While it isn't painful to watch, I can't recommend it as it's equivalent to eating only a bowl of plainly cooked rice as your meal. Not very interesting. 5/10.

This film is basically about cooking and competition. Also based on a comic book or manhwa. Although the competition and the way the main chef goes about trying to win is the main aspect of the plot, there are other elements that keep things interesting. There is also pretty emotional scenes as well, which adds to the entertainment value cause it immerses you into the story and actually makes you wanna care. On the negative side, the cooking process is not that interesting or entertaining to watch which is just a small gripe. I also thought the subplots with some melodrama is done good as well. Everything in this film is also very fast paced, and yet it does not confuse you either which is a good thing cause although it tries to cram a lot of stuff into one film it does a pretty well. There is films about chef and cooking, some done well and some not so well. This one has the right ingredients to succeed.

7.8/10

A romantic comedy about food should evoke some hunger pangs, as well as some mouthwatering oohs and aahs for the sheer visuals of food that you'll probably swear you can smell and taste, if done right. However, the first reactions from Le Grand Chef is "eeeeeeeeeeeee" followed by plenty of reeling from the graphic nature of fresh sashimi preparation. The opening scene is the preparation of fresh golden blowfish, where you'll see the fish still gasping in its last stages of life, snuffed through a deft decapitation of its head, followed by the fins, before skinning it in one fall swoop, disembowelment and the slicing of its meat so thinly that it's translucent.

Based on a popular comic book series, Le Grand Chef perched on the #1 spot in Korea for three weeks, touching very familiar territory in the likes of films shown a few months back such as No Reservations and Ratatouille. We're soon introduced to two rival chefs, Sung-chan (Kim Kang-woo) and Bong-joo (Lim Won-hie), where they are to present to a judging panel to wrestle control over a famed restaurant. Needless to say, Sung-chan fails miserably through obvious foul play, and quits the scene.

Becoming a well known produce farmer with fans made from middle aged housewives, Sung- chan is soon persuaded to return to the scene by VJ Jin-su (Lee Ha-na) through a cooking competition, where the prize is a rusty blade belonging to the Royal Chef, an artifact with so much rich history, it just had to tie into the lives of Sung-chan and Bong-joo and their ancestors. So it's game on everybody!

With good food photographed so beautifully, there's nothing not to like about the movie, despite its very familiar storyline, The plot may be recycled from various cookery/food movies, even like Stephen Chow's God of Cookery, but here, it goes to show that the delivery plays a huge part. While it is very obvious to rattle on and on about the competition proceedings, director Jeon Yun-su mixes things up and borrows loads from Japanese movies where food is concerned (Udon, anyone?) and added ingredients from melodrama to bloat the plot.

Fortunately, they don't dilute the movie, but provided a good variety of subplots on the side, ranging from supporting side characters such as a famed charcoal maker, to comedy involving the quest to cook the perfect Ramen. Running through the narrative is plenty of flashbacks into the ancestry of the rival chefs, which had a simple mystery on the sins of their ancestors, adding some form of depth into the hatred these men have toward each other. For once, I thought the flashbacks were as effective as they were entertaining.

While the subplots serve to entertain, the cookery competition serves up a feast for the eyes, albeit it took a backseat in the second half of the story after a flurry of first half activity, so much so that split screens in comic book style had to be employed to squeeze as much as possible on screen at the same time. And the presentation was kept fresh with different styles employed so that it's not the same after each round of competition, keeping in line with the necessity of having things fresh, akin to food.

Le Grand Chef is a delightful film to sit through, and probably fired the first salvo for 2008 as a contender to be amongst the top of my list this year. It's not just or always about food, but the philosophy, ingredients and plenty of heart, nevermind the cliché that come along with it, especially with the some similarities to Pixar's last offering, from plot to characters. One thing's for sure, food critics aren't really a likable bunch from the way they are portrayed in movies, ha!