Review:

The preparation of food as a sensual experience or metaphor for love has been demonstrated in countless motion pictures, most recently in such popular foreign films as "Tampopo," "Babette's Feast" and "Like Water for Chocolate."

But "Eat Drink Man Woman" goes a step farther, using the preparation of food as a metaphor for the life experience as a whole, to include friendship and familial devotion, as well as desire, passion and love. And, of course, in some cases, food is used as a substitute.

The year's best action sequence? Easy. It's Mr. Chu (Sihung Lung), a master chef, slicing, dicing, chopping, boiling, broiling, steaming the ingredients of the dinner he prepares every Sunday for his three not entirely grateful daughters. It's the culinary arts rendered as thrillingly as the martial arts, with a middle-age Taiwanese cook appearing as deft and graceful in his peaceful trade as Bruce Lee ever was in his more violent one.

Relying on food as a symbol for love, this comedy of family relationships (from Taiwanese director Ang Lee) tickles both mind and body. Mr Chu (Sihung Lung), a top-class Taipei chef, widower and father to three difficult daughters, is preparing his usual Sunday feast. The camera lingers delightfully over flying fingers as he massages pastry, fillets fish, sculpts vegetables and creates gourmet dishes with ease. His kitchen, and private empire, is cluttered with bubbling dishes, shelves of exotic spices and racks of serious looking knives. Mr Chu lives to cook and cooks to live (being Head Chef in a city hotel) yet he cannot taste the glories that flow from his skill, for his sense of taste is blunted.

A spicy, well-written comedy about family, food and independence, ``Eat Drink Man Woman'' (now available on home video) stars Sihung Lung as Chu, the finest culinary master in all of Taiwan. Widowed for 16 years, Chu devotes his life to raising three daughters.

The opening sequence in " Eat Drink Man Woman," in which a delectable Taiwanese banquet is prepared by a master chef, is guaranteed to make you contemplate the non-buttered popcorn in your lap and cry. Not quite as delicious -- but nonetheless enjoyable-is the repast that follows: Ang ("The Wedding Banquet") Lee's amiable family farce about generational tension and, of course, food.

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