When a widower washes up in a remote Finnish town with his son, his culinary skills enchant the locals and mesmerise the camera
Finnish director Mika Kaurismäki (elder brother of Aki Kaurismäki) gives us a well-intentioned if watery and bland drama, a decently performed but tepid heartwarmer which can be filed under that dodgiest of sub-headings: “foodie”, that is, something with a supercilious tendency to showcase delicious-seeming food as a shortcut to being life-affirming and life-enhancing.
A Chinese widower called Cheng (played by Hong Kong actor Pak Hong Chu) shows up out of the blue in a remote Finnish town with his young son Niu Niu (Lucas Hsuan), and walks into a roadside cafe run by Sirkka (Anna-Maija Tuokko), who is listlessly serving up dull grub for the locals. With no Finnish and only halting English, Cheng asks everyone in the place if they know of “Fongtron”: this mysterious...
Finnish director Mika Kaurismäki (elder brother of Aki Kaurismäki) gives us a well-intentioned if watery and bland drama, a decently performed but tepid heartwarmer which can be filed under that dodgiest of sub-headings: “foodie”, that is, something with a supercilious tendency to showcase delicious-seeming food as a shortcut to being life-affirming and life-enhancing.
A Chinese widower called Cheng (played by Hong Kong actor Pak Hong Chu) shows up out of the blue in a remote Finnish town with his young son Niu Niu (Lucas Hsuan), and walks into a roadside cafe run by Sirkka (Anna-Maija Tuokko), who is listlessly serving up dull grub for the locals. With no Finnish and only halting English, Cheng asks everyone in the place if they know of “Fongtron”: this mysterious...
- 3/8/2022
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
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