Screened as part of NZIFF 2005

Dumplings 2004

Gaudzi

Directed by Fruit Chan

The shady Auntie Mei promises eternal youth to all who eat her highly addictive, specially prepared dumplings. Soon demand exceeds supply in this sneakily spiced banquet for connoisseurs of bad taste and political incorrectness.

Hong Kong In Cantonese and Mandarin with English subtitles
91 minutes 35mm

Director

Screenplay

Lilian Lee. Based on her novella

Photography

Christopher Doyle

Editors

Tin Sam-fat
,
Chan Ki-hop

Music

Chan Kwong-wing

With

Miriam Yeung
,
Bai Ling
,
Tony Leung Ka-fai
,
Meme

Festivals

Berlin 2005

Elsewhere

Fruit Chan is the acclaimed Hong Kong triple-threat – writer/director/actor – with an enviably diverse track record of features since his indie hit Made in Hong Kong. In Dumplings a sex-starved former soap-opera star seeks eternal youth by eating the highly addictive dumplings sold by a certain Auntie Mei, a shady former medic who cooks up the secret ingredients at home. When the soap star’s cheating hubby, who has been seeking penile potency via fertilized duck eggs, discovers her secret, the film amps up into one nasty sexy comedy of horrors – albeit one with a sly allegory of a Mainland-immigrant underclass exploiting the westernized upper class. Chan has concocted a sneakily spiced banquet for connoisseurs of bad taste and political incorrectness. You must see this subtly sick and twisted gem before seeing the film Three… Extremes found elsewhere in this programme. This is Chan’s full-length elaboration of the episode he contributed to that anthology and contains completely surprising new subplots and twists. It’s shot superbly by the great Chris Doyle.