A taste of the simple life

Documentary team ignores top-class chefs and grand restaurants to focus on the joys of home cooking, Li Yingxue reports.

Food documentaries are 【小题1】 to a growing appetite in China as their quantity increases and cuisine variety expands. While most focus on popular restaurants in busting cities, director Wang Shengzhi chooses a different path-he tuns his lens to people’s kitchens in small towns.

“Eating is to repair oneself, if you go to a restaurant and order several dishes randomly, it can’t fix you. A bustling restaurant is a 【小题2】,” Wang says. “On countless occasions. I 【小题3】 that when I was a child, eating was such a simple thing that brought me huge satisfaction. Why? Because food is made by families.”

Directed by Wang, food documentary Taste of Home premiered online through video platform iQiyi and 【小题4】 on Fujian’s South East TV on April 7, so far receiving a rating of 8.2 points out of 10 on the review platform Douban.

Each episode, about 17 minutes long, introduces two 【小题5】 dishes from local families in two counties or villages. The audience can follow the food’s preparation and cooking while learning the stories of the families and the food.

Wang thinks the taste of home is about memory-even though someone may have visited countless restaurants, they will always yearn for the homemade dish that propels them back to the safety and warmth of childhood.

He is 【小题6】 to show that there is not a right or wrong way to cook. “There is no certain recipe for any dish, as the way to cook it can differ from family to family, but the one thing they all have in common is that they are made with love,” Wang says, adding that the dish is always cooked for loved ones or close friends.

One key factor for Wang when selecting an interviewee was their kitchen, as he required a traditional setup with a firewood stove. And most of the dishes that appear in the series use ingredients from the cooks’ own fields or backyards. “In this documentary I want to show that all ingredients have their 【小题7】, whether it’s the pigs raised by those in show, or the vegetables grown in their fields.”

In Wang’s mind, city life cuts people’s time into minutes and seconds, while in villages, time can 【小题8】. They will eat tomatoes when they are ripe. If not, they will just wait.

At the end of each episode, be poses a question, which the locals then answer for the viewer, usually about their dialects or customs. Wang says that the 【小题9】 of the segment (片段) is to take the audience on a tip back to their hometown.

“There are no conflicts in the documentary. Instead, it’s showcasing a feeling of family,” he says. “The theme of the documentary is not about heroes but ordinary people.”

“Hopefully, we can use an expression that attracts a younger audience to pass on our values. Our goal is to be the top 【小题10】 producers in the food documentary sector in China.”

For those who have seen War for the Planet of the Apes, it’s easy to come to this conclusion — this movie isn’t about war or the planet, and it’s not【小题1】 even about the apes.

Being the third in the trilogy (三部曲), War for the Planet of the Apes takes us back to a familiar world from【小题2】 films. A pandemic (流行病)has greatly reduced the human population while【小题3】 the intelligence of apes. Humans, led by the Colonel, want to survive by killing the apes, and the apes, led by an ape named Caesar, also try to fight their way to live.

With a story that should be full of【小题4】 and violence, War for the Planet of the Apes takes a different【小题5】—it only has small pockets of action and most of the film consists of quiet conservation. While recent sci-fi movies have become known for their action scenes. War for the Planet of the Apes has taken science fiction in a thoughtful and 【小题6】direction.

In order to survive, characters, good or bad, all have to make their decisions. They all wander in a moral gray area where evil acts are【小题7】 for understandable reasons and characters we【小题8】 with have serious flaws. Movie grants him.

For example, we would find the Colonel to be nothing but evil at the beginning of the film since his ambition is to kill every ape in【小题9】. But the movie grants him his reasons. He has a long conservation with Caesar in the middle of the film, in which he explains his ideas and his personal history, so that we have a glimpse into a【小题10】personality.

Dead Poets Society (死亡诗社) is a 1989 American drama film written by Tom Schulman, directed by Peter Weir and starring Robin Williams. The film evoked an extensive 【小题1】 on education. 【小题2】at the conservative Welton Academy in the northeast United States in 1959, and it tells the story of an English teacher who inspires his students through his teaching of poetry.

However, Keating’s methods attract the attention of strict headmaster Gale Nolan. He is fired and Nolan takes over teaching the class. Keating interrupts the class to collect personal articles before he leaves, the students shout that all of them were forced to sign the letter that resulted in his 【小题8】. They stand on their desks one by one and salute Keating with the words “O Captain! My Captain!”. Keating is deeply 【小题9】.

The Dead Poets Society received critical applause and box office success. The film’s line “Carpe diem. Seize the day.” was also voted as the greatest movie 【小题10】 of the year 2014 by the American Film Institute.