The God of Cookery

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God of Cookery

Directed by	Stephen Chow Li Lik-Chi
Written by	Stephen Chow Vincent Kuk Lou Man-Sang Tsang Ken-cheong
Starring	Stephen Chow Karen Mok Vincent Kuk
Cinematography	Jingle Ma
Editing by	Cheung Ka-Fai
Release date(s)	1996
Running time	95 minutes
Country	Hong Kong
Language	Cantonese
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IMDb profile

The God of Cookery (traditional Chinese: 食神; simplified Chinese: 食神; pinyin: Shi Shen; Cantonese Yale: Sik San) is a 1996 Hong Kong comedy film directed by acclaimed Hong Kong comedian, actor and director, Stephen Chow, best known in the west for his films Shaolin Soccer and Kung Fu Hustle.

1 Synopsis
2 Box office
3 Cast
4 External links

[edit] Synopsis

Stephen Chow with a pastry shaped like 心, the character for heart

The God of Cookery is the story of celebrity chef Stephen Chow (Chow, although the Chinese characters used for Chow's name in the movie is different from the one that Chow uses in real life), who, as it is later revealed, knows very little about cooking himself and is willing to hawk any product for a price. Because of Chow's apparent culinary skills, he is known as the "God of Cookery" and runs a successful business, as well as appearing as a judge for rigged culinary competitions.

When rival businessman and accomplished chef Bull Tong (Vincent Kuk), who had posed as a fan, reveals to the world that Chow is a fraud, Chow finds his business empire being taken away from him. Chow begins living on the streets in an area known as Temple Street, where two rival street vendors, Goosehead (Lee Siu-Kei) and Turkey (Karen Mok), conduct gang warfare to see which vendor could sell which of the two best-selling dishes, beef balls and "pissing" shrimp. Chow manages to unite the two rival vendors by combining the two dishes into a new dish, "Pissing Beef Balls", that the three of them could sell together. The dish becomes a huge success, and the vendors convince Chow to enroll in a culinary school in order to reclaim the title he had lost—but not before he discovers that Turkey idolized Chow as the "God of Cookery", and received her scarred appearance due to her devotion.

The success of the "Pissing Beef Balls" alarms Bull Tong, the new "God of Cookery", who arranges for Chow to be assassinated on the way to culinary school. Turkey, however, takes the bullet instead, and Chow (presumed dead) disappears.

Shaolin temple monk Wet Dream.

Months later, Bull Tong enters the "God of Cookery" competition (a parody of Iron Chef) as the heavy favorite to retain the title (largely due to his clout over the judges). Chow arrives at the competition at the last minute, and reveals to Tong (and the audience) what had happened: Chow escaped the assassin's second bullet, and found his way to the Shaolin temple where a monk by the name of Wet Dream (a spoof on the Chinese word for nocturnal spermatorrhea) nursed him back to health. However, Wet Dream would not allow Chow to leave the temple until he was well-versed in the ways of the Shaolin arts—a point that was made moot when it was revealed that the culinary school he was going to attend was, in fact, the temple's kitchen—the same kitchen that Bull Tong had trained in for years. While training, however, Chow continually mourned for Turkey, and was overcome with remorse over his careless treatment of her. The depth of his feeling, which even caused his hair to grow white, eventually allowed him to leave the temple.

The competition between Chow and Tong begins in earnest, with the two attempting to make identical Buddha Jumping Wall dishes. Each chef tries to sabotage the other's dish in a comedic wuxia fashion by attacking the other using their ingredients or kitchen implements, but Tong prevails by making Chow's container explode. With few materials and little time remaining, Chow prepares "sorrowful rice"—a simple dish of char siu rice with egg and onion, the same dish that Turkey first gave to him while he was living in the streets. Although Chow's "Sorrowful Rice" is the better dish, Tong has already blackmailed the judge (Nancy Sit) into rigging the contest. Through divine intervention, Tong is killed and Chow's former manager is turned into a dog. It is also revealed that, in a former life, Chow was an assistant to the Kitchen God before being sent to Earth as punishment.

After the competition, we see Chow with his friends in Temple Street, where Goosehead reveals that Turkey had miraculously survived the assassination, but not without needing plastic surgery on her face and teeth, making her pretty once again.