The cast and crew met the audience both and before
the world premiere of The Dating Menu
The Dating Menu (Hong Kong, 2026)
- Amos Why and Frankie Chung, co-directors, and -scriptwriters (with Kong Yu-sing)
- Starring: Lo Chun-yip, Rachel Leung, Renci Yeung, Kearen Pang, Crystal Cheung
- Part of the HKIFF's Galas program
"This seemed like a film made for you," a friend said to me after he bumped into me as we were both leaving the Hong Kong Cultural Centre, where the world premiere of The Dating Menu had taken place. And then he saw my face and he realized that I hadn't loved this movie about a man for whom the name Zelda has a special meaning as much as he thought would be the case!
Over dinner a couple of evenings later, I outlined one nagging issue to him: Despite this cinematic offering that stars Lo Chun-yip as Hark Lam, a professional chef who offers to cook women he hooks up with on a dating app culinary feasts featuring a lot of well prepared meals, this serious foodie hadn't come out of the screening feeling at all hungry the way I've done with a whole bunch of food-filled films like God of Cookery, Eat Drink Man Woman or Oxhide II. (And I don't think I can blame cinematographer Leung Ming-kai for not being able to shoot food well as, among other things, Memories to Choke On, Drinks to Wash Them Down, which he had lensed as well as co-directed and -scripted with Kate Reilly, had got me pining to eat quite a lot of foods in that movie!)
To be sure, early on in The Dating Menu, I wondered if that actually was the plan; this not least since the film's first food scene involved Hark Lam not behaving how I'd expect a top notch sushi chef would, its second had the dinner he prepared causing his date (played by a sadly under-utilized Rachel Leung) to have an allergic reaction and the third resulting in the woman he cooked for (essayed by Renci Yeung) to remark that it sensed it lacked "feel". But even after Hark Lam apparently took to heart that feedback, it still felt like ingredients were missing -- to make the work fully winning, even if not its protagonist's culinary creations!
In fairness, some scenes in the movie do work better than others. I'm thinking here of the time when Hark Lam went and cooked for a single mother (portrayed by Crystal Cheung) and her two daughters and, upon being challenged as to why he had made simple food for them, replied that he figured that's what children would like. (Not coincidentally, that was a rare occasion in The Dating Menu where Hark Lam explained the thinking behind his choices of dishes. And yes, I think the movie would have been strengthened considerably by more of that.)
I also did appreciate the part of the film when Hark Lam went to the home of Yvonne (played by Kearen Pang) who revealed that her British husband had moved back to the UK but she was going to remain (alone) in Hong Kong. For starters, the conversation between the two -- like another later on in the movie that takes place in his restaurant between old friends -- covered issues that a lot of Hongkongers are thinking about. In addition, Kearen Pang managed to give far more humanity and dimension to her character than the other actresses did for their parts which, frankly, felt far more underwritten -- and, well, under-cooked -- than that of the main male in the movie.
And therein may lie my main issue with The Dating Menu: that is, that unlike with, say, Amos Why's Far Far Away, which has a similar plot structure involving a bunch of female characters being linked to one another only by way of their all knowing one particular man, the women in this movie seem more like plot devices to further the man's story (and emotional development) than have stories to share in their own right. I wouldn't go so far as to accuse the directors and scriptwriters of sexism but I would venture to argue that they weakened their movie by not giving due respect and care to the women in this work, and -- returning to the issue(s) I pinpointed earlier in this review -- certain salient parts of the culinary process too!
My rating for this film: 6.5
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