Well Go USA
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The Chef, The Actor and the Scoundrel / Chu zi Xi zi Pi zi
Directed by Hu Gaun
China, 2013, 108 minutes
The Chef, the Actor and the Scoundrel becomes avaialble today on Blu-ray, DVD and digital (video-on-demand, electronic sell0-through and streaming). I watched the Blu-ray for purposes of this review and must say that the video transfer was gorgeous. the colors really popped. Of course, this high quality imaging on Blu-ray is pretty standard for Well Go USA releases.
Set during the occupation of China durting World War II, the film is an unusual comedy in that it centers about the need to find a cure for a cholera epidemic that is devastating the population of Beijing. While the structure of the title brings to mind the British film The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover (1989), The Chef, The Actor and the Scoundrel is actually closely related to Eastern Bandits (2012), another Mainland movie about Chinese heroes who fight the Japanese occupiers during WWII.
In this case the film specifies early on that it's about four heroes, not three as the title would seem to indicate. The fourth hero is Wu Hongying who is played by Liang Jing, who -- interestingly enough -- was also in Eastern Bandits. She is the wife of the Chef (Liu Ye, Curse of the Golden Flower) and is also referred to as the Proprietress and elsewhere as the Stupid Wife since she's apparently (though not really) a mute. My understanding is that the English title is a straight translation of the original Chinese, so it's anyone's guess why she is not included in the title.
In any case, the Scoundrel (Huang Bo of Lost in Thailand) kidnaps two Japanese officers of the North Chinese Area Army, Manchukuo Division Unit 731. One is Sugai Shinichi, a lieutenant in the Imperial Army and the other, the real target of the kidnapping, is Colonel Ogasawa Goro, a Bioweapons Specialist. It seemed to me that the Japanese started the epidemic, but that the cholera had mutated and was killing both Chinese and Japanese indiscriminately. So the point of the kidnapping is for the Chinese patriots to obtain the cure to the new strain of cholera and save the city.
The Scoundrel, who is dressed much like a cowboy from the American West and could just as easily be called the Bandit or the Thief, deposits his two captives in the restaurant, a large establishment with no customer because of the Japanese curfew. There we meet the Actor (Zhang Han Yu of Special ID and Back to 1942), who wears the heavy make-up and speaks in the high voice of Chinese opera.
And that's where much -- a good bit too much, in my opinion -- of the film takes place. The four heroes maintain their bizarre personas as they employ various means -- threats, humiliation, what have you -- to obtain information about the cure. Then they go off into a room by themselves where their true "smart" personalities come to the fore. (One of them is even a microbiologist!) The problem is that there's just way to much time spent in the restaurant without enough going on to keep things interesting.
It seems that director Hu Gaun, who c0-wrote the screenplay with Run Nian Dong, recognized this and tried to provide some diversion by introducing three Chinese detectives, who believe that something of great material value is inside the restaurant. Unfortunately, their presence doesn't really go anywhere or add much to the story.
There's one relatively brief action scene at the beginning of the film (i.e., the kidnapping), and a big one that works pretty well towards the end as the Japanese troops make their move on the restaurant.
The film is highly stylized visually and the comic aspects of it crossed the language barrier for the most part. The humor, when it worked, amused me, but I definitely did not ever come remotely close to "splitting a gut."
The Bonus Features are:
- The Making of The Chef, The Actor and The Scoundrel" (11:19)
- Blooper Reel (1:36)
- Trailer (1:42)
Part war movie, part spy tale, part comedy, The Chef, the Actor and the Scoundrel was enjoyable enough to watch, but not more than that.
AsianCineFest Rating: 2.5 out of 4 stars; better than fair, but not quite good.
