Magic Kitchen

Moh waan chue fong or its English title Magical Kitchen is the latest Hong Kong movie in offering for the lunar new year. However, there is not a single mood or occasion of a Chinese new year movie in it. I should say this movie is much better for a Christmas fare or Valentine's date movie.

Yau (Sammi Cheng) is a successful chef and owner of a restaurant which is located in a flat called Magical Kitchen which is more like a home rather than like a restaurant. In a tale told by Yau's mother, that she would be haunted by a family curse overshadowing three generations, which destines her (Yau) to fail in every relationship. On a tour of the Iron Chef TV show in Japan, Yau is at the crossroads between her love life and career.

To spice up the this "dish" (movie), we have Yau's assistant chef, Ho played by the hunky Jerry Yan of the fame popular Taiwan teen-throb quartet, F4. Yan is secretly in love with Yau but doesn't have the guts to express to his 'boss'. Next comes in the picture is Yau's former boyfriend, Chun Yao (Andy Lau) who is a sports goods company operations manager and a bowling expert. Further throw in two girlfriends of Yau, played by Maggie Q and Nicola Cheung, and you have a relationship roller-coaster ride.

Sammi plays her usual unpredictable self similar to her previous movies such as Love on a Diet, Good times Bed times and Needing You. Still she's a delight to watch. The same, however cannot be said about Jerry, who is extremely wooden here, and shares little or no chemistry with Sammi. Perhaps we got to blame the casting here as with one look at it we will feel it's a mismatched couples in all the roles.

If the name Magic Kitchen would have made you thought of some sort of a similar cooking stunts like Stephen Chow's The God of Cookery then you would be truly disappointed. Nothing unusual or special dish were being cooked up. At best, Magic Kitchen is good for a few laughs and the chance to see so many good looking actors (as well as other famous actors in cameos) on the big screen. But story-wise, it's wasted.

Magic Kitchen (Moh waan chue fong) has got a cast of beautiful people and a fun convoluted plot told in flashbacks from a few times, moods and perspectives. You will either love or hate that way of telling a story.

It is a story of how a circle of lifetime friends from kindergarten support each other and negotiate the sticky points of being adult and in the search for a partner or true love. It doesn't fit squarely into drama, comedy or romance genres, while having moments for all of them. While it makes social commentary on this age's shape of love and dating relationships, it is light, falling just short of fluffy.

It is sort of a watered down version of Like Water for Chocolate so far as the aspects of chef and cooking goes. The movie has definite parallels to the movie Woman on Top, with a chef, quirky unexpected plot turns, the bit of the surreal, and a woman who would be ditsy if she weren't so loved and smart. I liked this one better than the Penelope Cruz one because Magic Kitchen struck me as having far more believable characters, less sanitized view of choices in relationships, with less of a pat fairytale ending.

It's soundtrack isn't intrusive. It's cinematography doesn't take center stage but these things are considered. In the subtitles, it would have been handy in a couple places if the print on screen would have been translated not only the spoken words.