Dumplings (2004)

Review by Sean Patterson



"I eat this often. It's so nutritious. Sometimes in soup, sometimes minced and steamed with citrus peel. But dumplings taste the best."

I was planning on reviewing Tokyo Gore Police this week, but found myself out of the mood for samurai chicks who slice zombie arteries that spray blood like a water hose. So I went with something a little more subtle and ended up watching the moody Hong Kong flick Dumplings.
Directed by Fruit Chan, dumplings is premised on the idea that eating aborted fetuses can turn back the biological clock and make a person youthful and young again.
Ling Bai plays Aunt Mei, the cook with the magic recipe. She operates her high-end dumpling shop in a high-rise tenement and enjoys showing off her nubile body and ample clevage. Revealed to be 64 years old, Mei claims her good looks are from eating the filling in her dumplings. When she was a doctor in mainland China it was easy for her to get the ingredients, due to China's one-child abortion policy, but now she has to visit hospitals on the sly and pay under-the-table for her special meat.
Mrs. Li (Miriam Yeung Chin Wah) is Mei's sole customer, who pays exorbitant fees for the promise of youth. She is a former actress turned wealthy house wife who needs to attract the attentions of her philandering husband. At first, Mrs. Li is sickened by her knowledge of the contents of the dumplings, but as she begins to see results, she gets used to the taste as is soon impatient, asking Mei for her "most potent stuff."
Mei tells Mrs. Li that fetuses in the fifth month are the best and most nutritious, but also relatively rare. When a distraught mother brings her 15 year old daughter to Mei for a late term abortion, a plan is hatched that ends up drawing more blood and heartbreak than just what is seen in the graphic abortion scene.
The make up effects used for Mrs. Li are excellent. At the beginning of the movie she is the epitome of an aging, yet attractive older woman. By halfway through the movie she is hot, looking just as sexy as Mei. By then she is easily able to seduce her husband. Similarly, the directing is good, with plenty of slow, deliberate camera movement.
Throughout the movie there are shots of small fetuses being sliced with a cleaver. They look like they are made of jello, but I'm not familiar with the look of dead fetuses. The only ones I have scene are the ones in the "Bodies" art exhibit and the ones on the tracts anti-abortion groups hand out on college campuses. Come to think of it, they did look like jello, only the Christian propaganda was much gorier than anything in this flick.
The movie is very slow and methodical, setting the mood for a slowly building sense of unease and terror as Mrs. Li learns to enjoy eating the dumplings. If you are looking for action and blood, you won't find too much of it in this flick. It isn't particularly scary and the real horror here is that of the banal: that these women become comfortable with cannibalism to sate their obsession with beauty.