Moh waan chue fong (2004) - IMDb

a pleasant evening

Magic Kitchen (Moh waan chue fong) has got a cast of beautiful people and a fun convoluted plot told in flashbacks from a few times, moods and perspectives. You will either love or hate that way of telling a story.

It is a story of how a circle of lifetime friends from kindergarten support each other and negotiate the sticky points of being adult and in the search for a partner or true love. It doesn't fit squarely into drama, comedy or romance genres, while having moments for all of them. While it makes social commentary on this age's shape of love and dating relationships, it is light, falling just short of fluffy.

It is sort of a watered down version of Like Water for Chocolate so far as the aspects of chef and cooking goes. The movie has definite parallels to the movie Woman on Top, with a chef, quirky unexpected plot turns, the bit of the surreal, and a woman who would be ditsy if she weren't so loved and smart. I liked this one better than the Penelope Cruz one because Magic Kitchen struck me as having far more believable characters, less sanitized view of choices in relationships, with less of a pat fairytale ending.

It's soundtrack isn't intrusive. It's cinematography doesn't take center stage but these things are considered. In the subtitles, it would have been handy in a couple places if the print on screen would have been translated not only the spoken words.