This is what happens when a man best known for martial arts comedies decides to make a cooking show.
Stephen Chow plays Stephen Chow (
the Chinese characters in his name are different from his actual name),the undisputed "
God Of Cookery". His respect highly valued and his skills beyond compare, he's supported by
The Triads and the Tongs and big businesses alike, making him untouchable, until all of a sudden his support dries up and he's cast aside for Bull Tong, who reveals Stephen can't actually cook. Thrown and beaten to the street, he's helped by a disfigured noodle vendor named Turkey, until he's dead smack in the middle of brutal gang politics of street food vendors between Turkey and her rival Goosehead. Can Stephen find a way to regain his honor and title?
Provides examples of:
- Abhorrent Admirer: The "fangirl" who brings flowers. Also, Sister Turkey. She becomes less abhorrent after some plastic surgery.
- Absurdly Sharp Blade: Kitchen knives that can slice through falling ingredients without knocking them to the side.
- Ass Kicking Pose: Eighteen Brassmen of Shaolin! Before and during Stephen's subsequent ass-kicking.
- Badass Grandpa: The Headmaster of Shaolin Temple, Wet Dream...no, seriously: he drifts away like a ghost, teleports, and makes you bleed out of all your orifices all in one move.
- Bad Boss: Stephen at first, and Bull Tong later.
- Bad Moon Rising: Bull gets worried when he sees nine stars in alignment during the final competition.
- Barehanded Blade Block: Deconstructed brutally: Turkey's left hand is lacerated severely from grabbing a machete. Still, she's just too angry to let that stop her, leading to an Oh Crap moment from Goosehead, who's holding the weapon.
- Berserk Button: Turkey is quiet about it, but she loves Stephen and if you attempt to harm him, literally or figuratively, you'll need more than machetes to stop her.
- Bloody Handprint: As a result of the previously mentioned Barehanded Blade Block.
- Boring, but Practical: The folding chair.
- Break the Haughty: Sort of. At first, Stephen does act a bit nicer once he loses his empire, but as soon as he's on the track to getting in back, he's back to his old tricks. It's not towards the end he finally becomes a better person.
- Bullet Time: Preparing ingredients while they are in the air.
- Calling Your Attacks: Or in this case, calling your frying, chopping, etc. cooking techniques.
- The Cat Came Back: When Stephen runs off to mainland China to get away from Turkey.
- Caustic Critic: Nancy Sit, playing as herself and the judge, seems this way until she finishes winnowing down the competition to the only two characters that matter. Then she breathlessly inverts this trope.
- Chairman of the Brawl: Stephen brings out a chair to beat up Bull Tong, in the middle of their Cooking Duel.
- Chef of Iron: Starts with Bull and escalates steadily from there.
- Contrived Coincidence: How Stephen found the Shaolin temple.
- Cooking Duel: Begins with one, ends with one.
- Cooking Is Serious Business Apparently, you need to be a kungfu master.
- Deceptive Disciple: Bull to Stephen
- Deus ex Machina One of the most egregious and literal examples in Chinese cinema.
- Distracted by the Sexy: Subversion: Nancy wiggles her hips and does a little jig while walking past some of the contestants, then disqualifies them for taking their eyes off their cooking. It's a subversion since it's less than sexy and more of "WTF?" from the looks on the competitors' faces.
- Divine Intervention: Counts as a Big Lipped Alligator Moment.
- Dressed In Layers: Bull. Twice.
- Everybody Was Kung-Fu Fighting: Semi-subversion: Nancy seems to know an awful lot about Shaolin martial arts, even though she doesn't partake in any fighting at all.
- Fate Worse than Death
- Food Porn / Foreign Queasine: "Buddha Jumps Over the Wall" is a real Fujian Chinese dish containing dozens of meats, fish, and shellfish in a stew that takes really does take 2 days to prepare due to the need to let some ingredients sit overnight. It was named by a scholar who thought it was so delicious that Buddha himself would give up vegetarianism to try it. Here's one version of the recipe
. - Gonk: Turkey until the end of the movie and the "fangirl". Most Stephen Chow movies have at least one.
- Heel Face Turn: Goosehead and his food stall staff/gang joins with Turkey and Stephen.
- Hostage Situation: The bad guys have recruited the contest judge's son.
- Impossibly Delicious Food / Orgasmically Delicious: This causes an Imagine Spot twice.
- Jerkass: Stephen, who at first raises pettiness almost to the point of outright evil.
- Just in Time: Making it to the second contest.
- Kayfabe: The first contest is entirely rigged to make Stephen look good.
- Kick the Dog: Too many moments by both Stephen and the villains to recount.
- Kick Them While They Are Down:
- Bull does this once to show he's now the boss...an even more ruthless boss than Stephen.
- The irony is Stephen still does this later while pretending to calm down a fight.
- Lotus Position With subverted levitation: Headmaster Wet Dream sits down like this in the middle of the last contest and appears to be levitating, the camera moves and reveals that he's being carried out by security.
- Machete Mayhem: The favorite weapon of many a street thug. Also, one of the most unpleasant Bare Handed Blade Blocks you'll ever see.
- The Man Makes The Weapon: If you can be disarmed with a simple teaspoon, you probably haven't been spending enough time behind a chopping block.
- Martial Arts And Crafts And Cooking
- Mundane Utility: Chi blasts to cook food, among others.
- No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Eighteen Brassmen of Shaolin!.
- No Name Given: Despite playing an important role, Ng Man Tat's character of Stephen and Bull's buisness parter/Triad boss is never named.
- Not Quite Dead: Turkey returns and Cleans Up Nicely thanks to Magic Plastic Surgery.
- Oven Logic: Subverted by Rule Of Cool when Bull cooks Buddha Jumps Over the Wall that takes normally takes 49 hours in 2 minutes, powered by his internal chi.
- The Power of Love: The winning dish "Sorrowful Rice".
- Suck Out the Poison: Stephen by the temple's dean. Played for Laughs. May count as Squick.
- Supreme Chef: Stephen starts out pretending to be one but actually becomes one by the end of the movie.
- Tampering with Food and Drink: The cheap beef Stephen's business partner sets him up with.
- Three Act Structure: Each roughly 30 minutes or so.
- Took a Level in Badass: Stephen after training in the hidden monastery.
- Transformation Sequence: Try to say "Magical Chef Transformation Sequence" with a straight face.
- The Triads and the Tongs: The entire cooking association lead by Steven's right hand man.
- Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist: Stephen is a serious asshole for like 2/3 of the movie.
- What Do You Mean, It's Not Awesome?: The entire last third of the movie.
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