Summary
An excellent character-based drama that never falls into the trap of sentimentality. The union of Heiward Mak and Ann Hui is as sublime as you hope for.
With Heiward Mak’s directorial career being on the quiet side for the last few years,. Following long stretches between Diva (2012) and Good Take, Too! (2016), it’s arguable that her screenplay for Love in a Puff (2010) may have been seen the apotheosis of her filmography. At least until now.
Adapting Amy Cheung’s 2011 novel Spicy Love, it follows Hong Kong travel agent Acacia (superstar Sammi Cheng) finding out that she has two sisters – the pool-playing Taiwanese Branch (Megan Lai) and Mainland China’s Cherry (Li Xiaofeng), a social media fashionista – following the death of her father (Kenny Bee, who makes a special appearance in silent flashbacks).
The title of FAGARA (花椒之味) refers to the Sichuan pepper that’s essential to their late father’s hotpot recipe, and the restaurant around which the sisters do most of their bonding. What the film is actually about is a family in its various forms and crises, struggling to find their unity during a time of heightened emotion. As it’s co-produced by Ann Hui (Our Time Will Come), with Julia Chu, it would be easy to read this as being about contemporary politic issues – especially given that the sisters quite literally represent China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan as separate but linked entities.
Yet this is not aimed at filtering politics through interpersonal drama, like Ying Liang’s A Family Tour. Mak takes the time to explores each of these characters in turn: Acacia is caught between staying in a loveless relationship (with Andy Lau no less) or exploring something new (Richie Jen), Cherry struggles with her grandmother’s (Wu Yanshu) desire for her to find a husband, while Branch has a tense relationship with her mother (Liu Jueichi) thanks to her father’s past dalliances.
Even with Mak’s detours into romance and cooking montages, it never feels overly saccharine. Quite the opposite in fact: Mak writes these women like she knows them intimately, and it’s rare to see this kind of strong female bonding on screen dealt with in adult way. Unexpected humour comes from the belief a cockroach might be the spirit of their father, and Acacia getting her dad’s religion completely wrong at the funeral. Yusuke Hatano’s lightly sentimental score almost inadvertently takes the tone in another direction, but even this is done with a grace that extends to S.K. Yip’s (Fatal Visit) cinematography.
Along with The White Storm 2: Drug Lords and Line Walker 2, FAGARA represents an exceptionally strong year for Hong Kong cinema, even in the midst of massive social turmoil. While this might get lost in a sea of bigger budget films, opening as it is against It: Chapter 2 in its native box office, it would be a disservice to Mak’s heartfelt filmmaking to miss this excellent character piece.
2019 | Hong Kong | DIRECTOR: Heiward Mak | WRITERS: Heiward Mak (Based on the novel by Amy Cheung) | CAST: Sammi Cheng, Megan Lai, Li Xiaofeng, Andy Lau, Richie Jen, Kenny Bee| DISTRIBUTOR: China Lion (AUS)| RUNNING TIME: 118 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 13 September 2019 (AUS)
