Asia Society presents Water and Oil: The Movies of Ang Lee; a complete retrospective from February 14-23 with select appearances by the filmmaker and collaborators.

Eat Drink Man Woman
Ang Lee, Taiwan/US, 1994, 35mm, 124 min.

Food has never looked better on film than in the widely beloved final-installment of Ang Lee’s “Father Knows Best” trilogy, his only film set and shot entirely in Taiwan. Sihung Lung returns in the form of Chu, a widowed chef and the progenitor of three daughters; Jia-Jen is the coy eldest, a born-again Christian teacher; Jia-Ning is the youngest, a naive but fast-learning student; and Jia-Chen is the middle daughter, a corporate executive with a sordid love life and closest after her father’s heart (little wonder Lee was offered Sense and Sensibility for his next project). Chu and his daughters all live together and share company over his elaborately prepared meals. As each character comes to terms with what it means to get older, they begin to put their individual needs ahead of the family’s precarious unity.

Balanced between the sense of an ending and wildly unexpected new beginnings, Eat Drink Man Woman cemented one of the most remarkable careers in modern moviemaking and proved that when it comes to family, intimacy, two-shots, and highly sensitive, often hilarious drama, Ang knows best. Print courtesy of the Yale Film Archive. 

Followed by a Q&A with editor Tim Squyres.

A limited amount of complimentary tickets will be available to NYC college students with ID at the box office on the day of the screening.