If you want to spend a relaxing and uplifting couple of hours with a film drama you could choose Master Cheng (2019 - 1h 52m).
If you want fast action, and violent scenes you'd best look elsewhere. This film is a retreat from the everyday life that many of us experience - it's like having a holiday from the frenetic energy of the world. The blurb reads as follows:
"Professional chef Cheng arrives in a remote Finnish village with his young son looking for 'Fongtron', but nobody can help him. Sarkki, owner of the local café, offers them a meal and a room. Cheng repays her hospitality by cooking his own food, which soon entrances the locals.
In Finnish, Cantonese and English with English subtitles."As a film it worked well for me. It was a gently paced story that had all the emotional pulls that good films should contain. In addition, it was enhanced by beautiful scenery of the Finnish countryside (another county added to my 'must visit list'), and haunting music. Featuring Chu Pak Hong, as the mysterious Master Cheng, and Lucas Hsuan as his sad and lonely son Niu Niu, we see them arrive in a remote Finnish village that seems to have nothing to offer either of them, until they get to know the owner of a local café, Anna-Maija Tuokko as Sirkka.
It is Sirkka's act of kindness that initially gives the two travellers a place to be while they consider their next steps. These two people join a disparate group of fragile people, all silently carrying their own deep and private wounds - in that sense, they are perfectly at home.
At first the language and cultural barriers arrear to be insurmountable problems to Cheng's important quest to find Mr Fongtron, those barrier also seem destined to keep him and his son isolated together and positioned outside of their temporary community.
However, food is the key that connects the strangers to the foreign community and opens both the hearts and the minds of all concerned.
The meals that Master Cheng creates begins to have a healing effect on the different members of the community, and the newcomers begin to find a place to exist in this new foreign environment. Therefore it is not long before there is a growth of mutual respect on all sides despite the continued language communication barriers.
Master Cheng's life alters unexpectedly when he arrives in Finland, and Sirkka's whole world changes without her having to leave her own café, or village.
As Master Cheng says, "People happy important. Good food make happy. Important."Good stories give people hope, heal them and can also make people happy. It's important.
P. S. Peter Bradshaw of the Guardian did not like Master Cheng very much, I beg to differ.
What do you think? Worth your time?
If you want fast action, and violent scenes you'd best look elsewhere. This film is a retreat from the everyday life that many of us experience - it's like having a holiday from the frenetic energy of the world. The blurb reads as follows:
"Professional chef Cheng arrives in a remote Finnish village with his young son looking for 'Fongtron', but nobody can help him. Sarkki, owner of the local café, offers them a meal and a room. Cheng repays her hospitality by cooking his own food, which soon entrances the locals.
In Finnish, Cantonese and English with English subtitles."As a film it worked well for me. It was a gently paced story that had all the emotional pulls that good films should contain. In addition, it was enhanced by beautiful scenery of the Finnish countryside (another county added to my 'must visit list'), and haunting music. Featuring Chu Pak Hong, as the mysterious Master Cheng, and Lucas Hsuan as his sad and lonely son Niu Niu, we see them arrive in a remote Finnish village that seems to have nothing to offer either of them, until they get to know the owner of a local café, Anna-Maija Tuokko as Sirkka.
It is Sirkka's act of kindness that initially gives the two travellers a place to be while they consider their next steps. These two people join a disparate group of fragile people, all silently carrying their own deep and private wounds - in that sense, they are perfectly at home.
At first the language and cultural barriers arrear to be insurmountable problems to Cheng's important quest to find Mr Fongtron, those barrier also seem destined to keep him and his son isolated together and positioned outside of their temporary community.
However, food is the key that connects the strangers to the foreign community and opens both the hearts and the minds of all concerned.
The meals that Master Cheng creates begins to have a healing effect on the different members of the community, and the newcomers begin to find a place to exist in this new foreign environment. Therefore it is not long before there is a growth of mutual respect on all sides despite the continued language communication barriers.
Master Cheng's life alters unexpectedly when he arrives in Finland, and Sirkka's whole world changes without her having to leave her own café, or village.
As Master Cheng says, "People happy important. Good food make happy. Important."Good stories give people hope, heal them and can also make people happy. It's important.
P. S. Peter Bradshaw of the Guardian did not like Master Cheng very much, I beg to differ.
What do you think? Worth your time?