Dumplings (2006)

I love this movie so much

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Aunt Mei cooks special dumplings that taste bad, but supposedly help women keep their health and good looks. Mrs. Li is a former TV star who has more or less aged out of stardom. She tries Aunt Mei's dumplings, and spits out the first one. Mei talks her into resuming, after burying the rejected dumpling in the pot of one of her plants.Mr. Li, a late middle-aged man, is having an affair with the masseuse, who looks to be early twenties in age. Mrs. Li is discouraged by his excuses to leave town, but does not scratch very deep about it.As the film continues, it becomes clear what the 'secret ingredient' is. Aunt Mei used to be a surgeon in China. In obstetrics. In Hong Kong, abortion is against the law, and Aunt Mei has to keep a low profile.Mrs. Li decides to visit her husband at his hotel near his work...only to find he's not alone. Oh, goodness. She visits their house, which is being renovated. She discovers her husband's egg fetish. He eats the eggs when the young bird is fairly close to coming out.When Mrs. Li finds out what the extra strong secret ingredient is (by direct sight), she freaks out. Then she returns. Aunt Mei talks about how the much better the first born is, and how important it is to do the abortion without the usual drugs, which would damage the nervous system of the diner.Does it work? For a while her husband is very interested in her physically. Does it have side effects? Yes, she gets skin rashes that give her a decidedly fishy smell. While talking to Aunt Mei, Mr. Li overhears everything on another phone extension. He seeks out Aunt Mei and starts taking the 'cure' himself. It would seem that is what his eating bird embryos was about, so this is probably a natural extension for him.Aunt Mei convinces him that he could do quite well with the dumplings. She's 64, and he finds her quite desirable.The extra strong dumplings continue to have bad effects on Mrs. Li, who consults a physician. He tells her she's allergic to something in the hotel she's staying at, recommends she return home, and prescribes some medicine for her.Mrs. Li counter-attacks by directing the police to the home of the 15 year old, whose fetus she ate, and to Aunt Mei's apartments. Her husband returns to her, and she convinces (via currency) the masseuse to have her husband's baby aborted.Yikes. Mrs. Li listened to Aunt Mei's recipe preparation talks.------Scores------Cinematography: 9/10 On streaming Netflix, at least, the aspect looks more like 1.33 than 1.85. Go figure. Still, the visuals look good for the most part, with framing, lighting, and focus all fine.Sound: 8/10 Good, but I've heard better.Acting: 9/10 Quite nice by the main players.Screenplay: 10/10 Quite a study in human degradation made possible by abundant money.

Dumplings deals with some serious issues. You have Bai Ling. Bai Ling plays Mei a famous cook known for her home made rejuvenation dumplings. There is a secret ingredient in these dumplings. You are not told this woman was a former gynecologist and person who used to perform abortions. You won't know much about Mei exactly until a little later in the movie.You have a former TV Star Mrs. Li who visits Mei because she think those dumplings can help recover her youth and become attractive again to her husband. At what costs is it worth looking young? There also ends up being problems with husband such as having sex with other woman than his wife.Some of the content in this movie is stuff you may morally object to. This movie deals with a lot of different moral issues tied to love, beauty and abortion. Just having something like abortion in a movie would probably turn away any American from wanting to watch a movie like this. They ended up taking a short story and made into a 90 minute movie. It does end up being a little bit slow at times. This is an interesting movie. This is worth seeing at least once.

I am new to the Asia Extreme films (the first I saw was Oldboy). I enjoyed it because it evokes a sense of creepiness missing from American made films for a long time. Since I have only seen the short film version of the movie; I feel a bit disadvantaged to comment. That having been said, it was well acted and paced. I will be checking more of these out in the future as an alternative to the redundant "horror" being turned out by Hollywood. Spoiler (maybe).... I believe the woman's lengthened tongue in the final scene is meant to symbolize the monster that her vanity created rather than an actual mutation of her actual tongue.

Hmmm, bit of a let down this one, my own fault and no one else to blame what so ever, I must add. While building myself up to seeing what I presumed to be a horror tale, Dumplings turned out to be a horrific tale of just plain food for thought, thinking, where was the waiter who should have brought us a more flavoursome dish? Dumplings left me unsatisfied and just a little peckish for that missing something, maybe a meaningful and thought provoking plot, a sense of drama, an air of trepidation or simply put: excitement, though not altogether dull, just empty and uninspiring While beautifully shot, in places, by the cinematographer Christopher Doyle, Dumplings is a movie of narcissistic vanity and over indulgence of trying to recapture lost youth and, of course, beauty, as these two ingredients, of life, must come together as one package for the participating sleeping beauties here.Unfortunaly, with reprising ones years gone by one tends to become blinked and totally self-motivated, whatever the consequences. Here we see the middle and upper classes going to any extremes to remain ever so pretty, just for the sake of a glance and a nod.This movie could have worked, but it just didn't, the location for the protagonist's home, a run down part of the city, was very effective, but, as with the overall plot, the rest of the locations and the drive for Dumplings were virtually non-existent.This age old story line, take the 1935 and 1965 movies She with Helen Gahagan, Randolph Scott and Ursula Andress with Peter Cushing, respectively, for example, this story has rejuvenated itself in many forms, with Dumplings, this is more regurgitation than revitalisation.The characters are given no scope, no depth, then again, it really isn't about "them", they're too vain to be anything else, and it's about the life long human interest of eternal youth and the price that is duly paid by us all. Their preoccupation with their reflective self's are all that there is to play with, the feeling of shock at the methods are short and swift, when this has passed we are left with a shallow and fruitless concept that has been trod in the sands of time all so very often.