Dumplings movie review Assignment 5.
Film Studies by Kelly Cantrell/Bruce.
PLOT summary.
Dumplings is a Chinese cult horror film directed by Fruit Chan, after a string of predictable Japanese horrors and a outbreak of Korean Cinema China was somewhat left behind in the horror stakes…
Until now.
Dumplings does not follow a typical set of conventions that you may be familiar with when watching Asian horror movies, in fact this is not a ghost story, nor is it torture porn, it is simply more horrific in terms of it’s social implications on mankind and morality and takes a nice blunt controversial stab at both the beauty industry and the media.
The film revolves around a retired movie actress known as Mrs. Li who’s husband is cheating on her with younger women and so she seeks out a way in which to rejuvenate herself and bring back her youthfulness and vitality in order to please her husband again in the hope that he will stop cheating on her with younger women.
She hears about a women who makes famous dumplings that are said to return your youth and help to keep you young looking and so she tracks this women down in order to buy some of her famous dumplings.
However it is what is inside the dumplings that gives the film it’s elemental horror status and the fact that people will willingly eat this in order to stay young can also be seen as a stab at the beauty industry and the lengths in which people are willing to go to in order to attain a generic standard of beauty that is put out by the media.
Our “chef” used to work as a doctor and so doesn’t seem to have any problems in obtaining her foetal dumpling filler from the abortion clinic, which she then takes home and hacks up into little pieces for her dumplings.
According to Aunt Mei, (the chef) the older and fresher the foetus, the greater the effects it will bring upon consumption.
She herself claims to be her own walking advertisement as she herself has been eating these dumplings for years- hence the reason why she looks so good for her age, although her true age is not identified at this point so it is not clear if the dumplings really work or if it is just the placebo affect.
MOOD.
One of the strongest aspects of the film’s direction seems to come from the mood that the film conveys and the feelings it evokes, for example when watching the film you automatically envision the colour green, representational of the emotion’s “jealousy” and “greed”, this is cleverly done using low budget qualities such as subtle green lighting filters and various shades of green scattered throughout some key scenes, mainly in miss Ling’s apartment where the dumplings are made.
The scenes that depict the wife’s husband are bright and expensive, allowing the audience to see his richness, laid back millionaire lifestyle and his adulterous affairs with younger women.
A key moment also occurs her when Mrs. Li’s husband is seen eating an egg that has an under-developed manky looking bird foetus inside, which he scoops out and lavishes down his throat as though he is eating ice cream! The way this is presented to us makes it seem like a normal everyday occurrence and you get the feeling that this is totally acceptable for him to eat this.
I also found it much more repulsive than the foetus dumplings, which at least looked tasty and edible by the time they were cooked, the rotting bird foetus on the other hand looked so grotesque I felt I could smell it through the screen and would happily eat the dumplings over that. This makes me question the directors motives behind this scene, it’s as though he is almost trying to make his audience actually hunger for the dumplings by making them appear pretty and tasty looking in comparison to the dead bird that appears to be an everyday dish.
I felt the director was trying to convey a strong sense of irony and morality within this scene, asking us to question what we eat and what we don’t eat, and why can one thing be acceptable yet another thing so grossly unacceptable?
When the lead female character Mrs. Li visits miss Ling for the dumplings, she is initially rather anxious and a bit reluctant to eat the dumplings, but her desire to regain her youth and looks over-ride these feelings and it’s not long until she is eating the dumplings with more and more pleasure, another key scene shows the wife coming to the apartment for the dumplings over a period of time, she is seen to be eating the dumplings repeatedly, and it is apparent that she is enjoying them more and more each time, and by the end of this scene any signs of disgust or shame are completely gone, the greed has now consumed her and she is clearly hooked on miss Lings life altering dumplings.
Aunt Mei often sings to her clients whilst they are eating to make them feel relaxed, I found this quite humorous, but in a dark and slightly disturbing way, she can be seen dancing and singing around her apartment in her bright garish outfits whilst her quite, upper class and seemingly reserved client is sat munching on aborted babies in the hope to win back her husband!
I found this very funny and also highly suggestive in terms of ideology, the art world, (upper and lower class, high art low art etc) and the media.
Another major key scene and probably the most controversial scene in the entire film is when a mother brings her young daughter to Aunt Mei’s apartment begging her to perform an abortion on her daughters 5 month old unborn child, it is known that Aunt Mei used to be a doctor, and so the mother begs her for help.
Initially Mei refuses, stating that it is too dangerous. This shows the audience a more caring side to her persona as she seems to be thinking of the girl’s health before the money she could make if she were to use this to her advantage.
However after the mother begs and pleads, informing Aunt Mei that the girls own farther is the farther of the child, she decides to help them and perform the termination.
This is shown in some detail, which a lot of viewers may find very disturbing, but to cut the scene out or hide specific details would undermine the very core of the film and the message behind it.
Characters.
I would say there are 4 main characters overall, with the 2 women being the lead roles and the husband and the mother/child combination being the 4th.
Aunt Mei is probably the most mysterious of all characters in the film as we never truly know who she is, what her game is, where she came from, why she is not a doctor anymore, why she appears to be poor, or indeed how old she really is and if her dumplings really do work or if it is just a money making scam.
Although she appears to be in her 20’s, she does not have a curvy sexual figure, this could be deliberate or it could be just a matter of cultural preference in her being so skinny and shapeless.
Despite her looks, Mei does not act how you would expect a 20 something year old to act, she clearly has an underlying wisdom and authority about her that alerts you to the fact that she may not be all that she seems.
Her methodical approach to cooking aborted babies also gives to the impression that she is older than she looks, (in that she has experienced more in life than a typical 20 year old) this approach makes it seem as though she is psychologically immune to what she is doing, she even eats some of the materials whilst she is cooking them as though they are simply prawns!
Mrs. Li on the other hand comes across as being quite shallow and lonely, rather than just leave her husband and move forward with her life, she becomes obsessed with trying to acquire something she feels she has lost, this is clear to the viewers when she cry’s whilst watching film footage of herself when she was young. She appears to be more concerned about this than her husband’s adulterous lifestyle, as though she is taking his infidelity as a personal insult towards the way she looks, and she feels that if she were young again she would win him back, although I am not sure if this is for love or obsession and ownership.
Mrs. Li’s character changes from reserved and hesitant, she is at first anxious about what she is eating and runs from the apartment on 2 occasions after seeing aunt Mei preparing the dumplings in the kitchen, but her desire and emotional need for the product drags her back to the apartment where she continues to devour and enjoy eating the product she so desires.
Her anxiety quickly turns to impatience as the film progresses, this is shown by her body language and facial expressions more than words in the film which I found rather interesting, she starts by being in a rather tense position at a table with a repugnant look on her face, but several scenes later she is relaxed, and walking around, watching the food being prepared with glee in her eyes and then eating with enthusiasm and anticipation.
Key Scenes.
After eating the 5-month abortion that Aunt Mei reluctantly performed on the young girl in an earlier scene, Mrs. Li gets a phone call to say that her husband is in the hospital with a broken leg, she excuses herself after wiping her mouth and leaves.
The hospital scene is interesting in that when the husband calls his wife to the hospital, their roles as the dominative and the submissive partner switch, she taunts him with words such as: “so now you need me, now you notice me” etc her new gained inner confidence shines through and he is immediately attracted to this. She teases him with a glass of water, displaying authority and control and they end up having sex on the hospital bed.
This in turn leads to a whole new Mrs. Li, she is now seen to be happy again, refreshed and has a new zest for life.
Of course a darker scene is interwoven within Mrs. Li’s superficial happiness, and that is off the young girl and her mother on a bus, yet another key scene, in which the daughter is dripping blood on the bus seat and then continues to bleed to death in the road outside, with tears in her eyes the daughter is dead.
This is showing you, as the viewer that for one woman to gain a superficial and ideological sense of happiness, another has suffered immense pain and death having been the victim of her own father’s abuse, whilst the rich and ignorant feast around a table laughing and complementing Mrs. Li whilst they eat and drink wine.
I find this very commentary on real life society and the physiological barriers that are in place to divide upper class from lower class and underdeveloped countries from overdeveloped westernized societies.
Mrs. Li begins to itch and becomes convinced that she has developed a fish like odor and so calls Aunt Mei to yell at her, this is the only time Mrs. Li shows any kind of anger or aggression in the film, and the scene ends with her crying in the bath tub whilst viewing her younger self on TV.
It is presented to the audience that these are possible side effects of eating an illegitimate and therefore impure baby caused by an act of incestuous rape.
Of course Mr. Li, her husband eavesdrops on this conversation and curiosity leads him to Mei’s apartment, where he tries the dumplings for himself, whilst listening to Mei talk about cannibalism, and how it should not even be illegal in china and all her reasons for justification of what she is doing.
Whilst she is speaking there is some obvious sexual tension in the air and she and Mr. Li end up having sex, it is here that her true age is finally discovered and verified when the husband sees a picture of Mei on the wall in her 20’s, and works out that she is in fact 64 by the date on the picture.
He is shocked initially but then continues to have sex with her until Mrs. Li interrupts them via a phone call.
Lastly there is one more element to the story that furthers the character development of Mrs. Li whom I feel has been developed as a character the most during the film.
This scene is again at the hospital but this time she over-hears her husband’s mistress talking to a nurse about her pregnancy so Mrs. Li arranges to meet her to try and persuade her to abort the child, bearing in mind that she now has an addiction to eating this product.
The mistress tells her that she is having the baby for Mr. Li and that he is paying her for it because he wants a son, this led me to question Mr. Li’s motives behind his affair and whether or not his wife can bear children?
The mistress goes on to say she will charge less if it is a girl, then Mrs. Li offers to double the payment if she aborts the baby now and gives it to her as a trophy.
Perhaps the most disturbing scene in the entire film, and the most important in terms of character development occurs after this conversation.
Mrs. Li takes the girl to a private clinic and coldly and methodically tells the doctor how she would like the procedure performed in order to keep the baby alive, she tells them she wants it for a trophy, the most expensive trophy in the world.
The doctor advises her that this approach will cause more pain for the mother, but she is adamant stating that her pain will only be temporary, perhaps suggesting that her suffering has been far worse.
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