The God of Cookery

Malaysian Chinese lie at the bottom of the Asian barrel.
Taiwanese, Japanese, Singaporeans, sheesh, even Indonesians look down on us. But that’s ok we look down on you in our own ways.

But for some reason, most Malaysian Chinese (at least in the 90s) willingly accept and bow down to the awesomeness of Hong Kongers.

I learnt my Cantonese from TVB and Hong Kong movies. Because when you switched on channel 2 on the TV back then, it was either a Cantonese drama (weekdays), or a Cantonese movie (weekends).

Man, that was really the golden age of cinema.

In the 90s, the Hong Kong cinema box office was dominated by ‘Two Chows and a Chan’.

I bet you know the Chan - Jacky.
You’ve probably heard of one the Chows - Yun Fatt.

Many outside of Hong Kong would not know of the 3rd Chow.

Because he didn’t sell Hong Kong cinema to the international market, he sold Hong Kong cinema to the domestic market.

I’m talking about Stephen Chow.

Chow was grossly unappreciated back then.

In 1992, Chow starred in 7 of the 10 highest-grossing movies in Hong Kong. That’s Stephen Curry's level of craziness.

Yet even though he was a box office guarantee, the media, publications, critics would identify him as slapstick, low-brown, the common denominator entertainer.

Or course, he would later prove everyone wrong by directing internationally acclaimed movies such as Shaolin Soccer and Kung Fu Hustle, but I’m going to talk about what I think is his best movie - The God of Cookery aka Sik San.

Some context:

1. The movie was released in 1996, a year before the handover;
   

2. It’s his third movie, second year as a director;
   

3. Compared to Forbidden City Cop - his other period movie filmed the same year, this is a low-budget B-grade production, yet performed much better at the box office.

I’m not going to go through the plot points scene by scene, just why I think it’s his best movie:

Assholes, so hot right now… and also then.

The Hero’s Journey in The God of Cookery is not your typical village idiot who grew through circumstances like Luke Skywalker.

The main character started as THE God of Cookery - the peak.

It’s about a successful asshole being betrayed because he was an asshole, and learned to be successful again by not being an asshole, with the help of the dysfunctional friends he made (and love) along the way.

(Did I just describe the whole plot of Ironman III?)

I mean, with 2021’s hindsight it’s not a big deal having an asshole as the main character. Tony Stark, Walter White, Dr. Strange, Sherlock Holmes, Maleficent came to mind.

But in the 90s, Jackie Chan ain’t playing no asshole.
Jet Li ain’t playing a villain (unless he’s also playing the hero).
Chow Yun Fatt would die as a hero, but never betray his friends.
Even Tom Cruise played the villain twice, and that one time it was a comedy.

In a Cave … With a Box of Scraps!

Remember 1938, when Orson Welles enacted ‘The War of the Worlds’ on the radio, and some Americans really panicked and thought we were invaded by aliens?

It was textbook materials for students of advertising on how powerful media can be.

The real master class for me was during an interview, when a young kid asked Welles why he chose radio as a medium, and he replied:

To make an alien invasion movie, I needed to show the aliens and that’s expensive. On a radio show, I simply have to create the sound of an invasion, and everyone has aliens in their mind.

Basically using the least amount of money to achieve the maximum effect.

When I examine the movie, I realised with the tight shots, everything could’ve been shot in a studio. The penthouse scenes were possibly the most expensive because they actually needed to show the Hong Kong skyline.

How did we know it was in Shaolin Temple?
Because there’s a sign that says ‘Shaolin Temple’.

How did we know the final competition was on a big ship?
Because they said it was on a big ship.

How did we know he went to Hunan?
Because the plane ‘Indiana Jones’d to a red dot that says ‘Hunan’.

Sure Chow had bigger success with his later movies, but he also spent big bucks on CGI, Yuen Wo Ping, location hire.

He made this movie using scraps.
And the imagination of the audience.
That’s the sort of low-budget movies I dig.

Boring Characters = Boring Movie.

Let’s not forget the characters and dialogues, the sense of humour that carried the movie.

The cast is so … ugly funny.

Ng Man Tat, Chow’s usual partner on screen (RIP), plays the evil boss on the other side without his signature mustache.

Karen Mok, possibly one of the most famous starlet back then, had a prosthetic teeth and a scar across her face 99% of the movie. (A recurring theme in Shaolin Soccer - the anti-beauty female protagonist).

The whole beef ball gang was basically a blueprint for Shaolin Soccer.

Not to mention Law Kar-ying playing himself BUT with a wig.

Nancy Sit, who was basically Anita Mui’s mentor - a legend, appeared as a comical judge, stealing the final act.

All characters are a twist of their actual self, apart from the main character, Chow himself. The character’s name is Stephen Chow. LOL He’s saying ‘does it even matter, you’re here for me!’ That arrogant, perfectionist, asshole boss, which was how the industry described him.

Re-visit the scenes and watch the characters. Not one single person looks ‘normal’. They’re all there to catch your attention, usually funny, or ugly, or both, to serve a purpose to the plot.

It’s Just An Illusion!

The movie’s a comedy, yet Chow did not pull any punches portraying the dark side of humanity / culinary world.

Remember again, this was 1996, pre-Masterchef.
Kitchen Confidential didn’t get published for another 4 years.

Cooking competitions are rigged.
Simply by using celebrity chef and buzz phrases like ‘love’, you can upsell a bowl of HKD$23 cart noodle to HKD$99.9
People are always waiting to stab you in the back, especially the ones closest to you.
Abuse will only teach abuse.
If you want to survive in the industry, you gotta mass produce.
Shaolin Temple Monks can gamble, be stingy and pissy, even the dean.

Everything was morally corrupt or grey, apart from the ending when Guanyin, the Goddess of Mercy appeared, (a homage to his 1995 movie A Chinese Odyssey) a literal deus ex machina, to right all the wrongs.

If you cook from your heart, even the gods will be touched.

I’m not sure which felt more impossible, that, or the fact that the girlfriend blocked a bullet with her big front teeth and became pretty in the end.

So yes, the most unrealistic part, was the happy ending.

No Time To Waste.

I’m really surprised to find the total runtime of the movie to be 90 min, because in my mind, there were a lot of plot to cover.

The introduction, the betrayal and downfall, the love story with the lady boss, inventing the beef balls, searching for the Chinese Culinary Institute (there’s a chase scene there that fans of Kung Fu Hustle will find familiar), the assassination, the escape, the training, the transformation, the final confrontation …

The answer is editing.

The first act was hidden in the second act in the form of flashback.

They did it again in the third act, interweaving the flashback of how he trained in the kitchen of Shaolin Temple as the competition went on.

The juxtaposition between the ridiculous cooking scenes and how he realised his true love lied with the dead lady boss and cried his hair to grey was nothing short of amazing.

Watch the competition again, there were some transitions that would make Edgar Wright proud.

Cart Noodles and BBQ Pork Rice

If you like food, I don’t see how you wouldn’t like this movie.

There’re plenty of unforgettable scenes - the reaction of the gangster boss who tried the explosive beef balls for the first time, the 18 brass man of the Shaolin Monastery who just smacked him with foldable chairs rather than real martial arts.

There’s a scene, which a competitor accused the other of plagiarism, and the judges response was:

This is a race. Swimmers and runners copy each other too. Objection overruled.

I died.

(As I was writing this, I just realised, the fortune-teller at the beginning and the end of the movie, the same theme as Kung Fu Hustle.)

And who could forget the climax.

The most perfect char siu (BBQ Pork) rice depicted in a movie ever.

When his pot of ‘Buddha Jumping Over The Wall’ exploded, the protagonist improvised and came up with the humble BBQ pork (charsiu) on rice.

Putting my ‘one semester of Asian Cinema Studies’ hat on, I’d say the BBQ pork rice is a metaphor to represent Chow’s own body of work.

The world wants Buddha Jumping Over The Wall (expensive, award wining, art-house, tasteful movie), but the game is rigged.

Charsiu rice - the slapstick, low brow, common denominator is where his heart is at.

(In Forbidden City Cop, another movie produced in the same year, he dedicated a full 5-minute parody of an award show criticising his own acting as shallow, pompous and ‘not academy material’.)

It’s his way of saying, screw you academy.

For me The God of Cookery was peak Chow.
His last movie, last attempt of being himself.

In his next movie, King of Comedy, Chow completely changed his game and direction.

Less slapstick, more auteur-like.

After the 97 handover, with the help of China’s support and market, he made Shaolin Soccer, Kung Fu Hustle, and the rest was history.

That bowl of charsiu rice, now franchised, distributed worldwide.

It gave him everything he ever wanted - fame, awards, recognition.

Yet, everything I ever needed from Stephen Chow, I had it in The God of Cookery.

The best charsiu rice was the one we had along the dim, sticky, humid, dingy alleyway when we’re kids.

The original God of Cookery is available on Youtube.
If you don’t understand Cantonese, you’ll have to squint for the English subtitle here.

This post took me over 4 weeks to write. Never again.

If you’re new here, thanks for buying my book.
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On 20th November I’ll be migrating my emails to substack and I don’t think you’ll need to do anything. You’ll be automatically notified or subscribed to the free account.

Can I also apply a little bit of emotional blackmail and say that my birthday is on the 25th November and a paid subscription would be the best gift, and make me a proud father in front of my daughter?

Speaking about birthday, Melbourne is out of lockdown!

I’m trying to work out a deal with The Lincoln, a fine pub right around the corner to free up their function room for our soy sauce tasting session.

If that works, I might be able to even cook some noodles for you guys. I’m thinking 25 serves.

Still not sure how ‘open’ we’ll be in November.

Fingers crossed.

Once again, I’m scheduled for a proper Clubhouse event on 12 November, but I’m sure I’ll catch you before then.

Stay safe, eat well.