| I once heard that, soon after Salman Rushdie’s book The Satanic Verses was published, Islamic fundamentalist filmmakers made International Gorillay (a.k.a. International Guerillas)(1990), a movie that featured a Rushdie character performing a host of atrocities before facing a giant floating copy of the Koran, which zaps him to death with a laser beam. I’d like to see that film some day, because it sounds pretty weird. Still, I can say with a reasonable amount of certainty that it can’t possibly be any weirder than Stephen Chow’s God of Cookery (1996).
Some people speak of "train-wreck" movies where audiences gape at the film, completely unable to turn away. God of Cookery isn’t like that. God of Cookery is like seeing a horrific train wreck and then seeing the survivors crawl out, bloody and sobbing, before suddenly jumping up, linking arms and dancing the cancan. You watch this film in a continual state of bafflement, wondering what the hell you just saw and completely unable to guess what’ll happen next.
Chow, of course, is the writer-director-star behind the berserk masterpieces Kung Fu Hustle (2004) and Shaolin Soccer (2001). Fans of those two films will know that the best approach to watching his films is to simply give up trying to make sense of it all, sit back and prepare for a jaw-dropping experience. You’ll laugh, be repulsed, laugh, get more confused than you’ve ever been in your life, boggle in shock, scratch your head, laugh again, groan, and then repeat the cycle every 87 seconds or so. It’s exhausting, but fun.
Chow plays an arrogant asshole named (get this) Stephen Chow, renowned everywhere as the God of Cookery. Chow’s main shtick is to insult every dish he samples, and to hurl abuse at every cowering chef in earshot. He’s an overbearing jerk without a kind word to say to anyone – he even stops the film itself to criticize the acting and art direction. This goes on until the audience can’t wait to see him humbled. Sure enough, a simpering underling suddenly grows a backbone and reveals Chow’s culinary ineptitude on national TV. His fall from grace is a swift one, as Chow’s rival seizes the throne and Chow himself faces criminal charges for serving inferior beef, which makes 50 restaurant patrons violently ill. Within moments, he’s reduced to begging in the street.
Ah, but not for long. Chow teams up with two street vendors and invents a snack food that becomes so popular so quickly, he’s immediately catapulted back into fame and fortune. What is this new taste treat, you might ask? You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.
Oh, what the hell. It’s called explosive pissing beef balls.
See, I told you that you wouldn’t believe me.
At first, nobody wants to buy a dish called explosive pissing beef balls. That is, perhaps, the most realistic moment in the film. I mean, jeez, that’s a really busy title for a tasty meat snack and it hardly sharpens the appetite. Initially, the vendors have to give the meatballs away for free before anybody will try them, but soon the customers are lining up around the block. The snack combines the heartiness of beef with the sweetness of shrimp. OK, that sounds reasonable, but the movie isn’t through yet. The meatballs are also bouncy enough to play ping-pong with (!) and actually explode in the taster’s mouth, spraying liquid everywhere. Everybody is in awe over how elastic they are. Sure it seems strange to us, but in this film, the dish everybody wants is a water balloon made out of meat.
Does that sound strange to you? Ha! Run for the hills then, scaredy-cat, ’cause this movie’s just warming up. We also get to see an Iron Chef-style cooking competition in which Chow and his arch rival fling dozens of kitchen knives at one another, while flashbacks of Chow getting beaten up by metallic Shaolin monks keep popping up. And yes, somebody really does get fried by a holy laser beam from the heavens. Take that, Salman Rushdie! |
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