Final Recipe (2013) - review, spoilers

Hi all!

It seems I was hit with new ideas for this blog: writing my impressions on movies or series I watch, books I read, and .. well, I don't play video games.

This is a movie from 2013 and it's a South Korean and Thai production. This is a drama about growing up, family reuniting, and it has a happy ending. There are also a couple of more funny scenes, but comedy isn't on the menu of this movie - see what I did there?

I watched a version dubbed in Chinese [most likely Mandarin, but I can't be sure at this point], though originally English was also spoken in the movie. The movie was also subbed in Chinese and English, and the dubbing part didn't bother me much.

You might want to skip the colorful text if you don't want to read the SPOILERS AHEAD...

Spoilers ahead!

A man from Singapore loves cooking and is a chef in a restaurant. His only son also likes cooking. Like most parents, this man wants his son to have a different career than that of a chef or cook. He would prefer his son to become an engineer, or maybe anything else. 

The son leaves his father and his own little boy in order to appear on a cooking show and doesn't return. The man, basically the grandpa at this point, is left with raising his grandson. In the meantime, the grandpa also sends a message to his son telling him he no longer has a family to return to.

Some 15 years later, the grandson is now studying to become an engineer himself. You might not guess it, but he has a penchant for cooking as well. His now ill grandfather runs a restaurant but the business isn't going well.

The grandson decides to join a cooking competition in hopes to win the big prize and help the business. Little does he know the man he needs to impress with his cooking skills is his father.

The final stage of the competition reunites the family and everyone is happy.

WHAT I LIKED ABOUT THE MOVIE

• they made cooking and the results look like art. Well, in real life, most expensive restaurants present food in an artistic way, so they weren't far off from reality with this.
• the movie has a happy ending. You want to watch a movie to relax in summer? you're either going to watch a comedy or a movie with a happy ending. This may sound a bit redundant since most comedies I remember have a happy ending, but there are other movie genres with a happy ending too.
• one of the messages I got from this movie was to trust my instincts. This is a life lesson I try my best to obey. Luckily I didn't really need it lately.
• the movie makes a good point about what lying can do to a relationship. Many other movies do too. Yet, we never learn.
• another message I saw in this movie was not to let relationships die. Comfort is no. 1 relationship killer: it makes us or our partner stray, and makes others grow apart.
• there's also a lesson to learn here: it's OK to follow your dreams. Just make sure they [the dreams] can bring food on the table, or that you follow a path that can bring food on the table. [IE: you like painting. Awesome! but artists have a hard time making money, so better work as some sort of a designer instead, and paint on the side. At least until you can sell your art for big bucks]
• be stubborn when it comes to work, not when it's about relationships.
• the movie points out what matters more in life: family.

Perhaps you think i liked everything in this movie. Unfortunately, there are some things i didn't like. I'll present them in no specific order, below. 

WHAT I DIDN'T LIKE ABOUT THE MOVIE:

• that acting wasn't the best I've seen.
• I also think it sets some unrealistic expectations when it comes to cooking and following our dreams. Making it into a competition can't possibly be THAT easy. Being a chef is more difficult than that, I believe.
• I also think that 2 side characters fell in love in a quite unrealistic way.
• some scenes, or at least the ending was predictable from a certain point onward. This is not such a bad thing after all: you can still watch to see how the events fall into place from one situation to the other, to end the way it's supposed to end.

Rating:

I rate this movie 3.5 table spoons out of 5. Good luck using half a spoon! ;p 

I think you should watch it if you want to see something light that is easy to follow, and perhaps predictable at times.

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