The author of this article is a contributor @Luo Hanguo
Want to peek into the world through light and shadow
Japanese-style small fresh healing films have always had a stable market and audience.
The uniqueness of this genre is that it does not try to collide directly with the hard side of reality, but takes a step back, allowing the protagonist to withdraw from the complex world and find a place for emotions to stay in peace.
For example, "Little Forest", "Ahhhh
This drama Xiaowan mentioned to everyone before, because there is a big director behind it - Hirokazu Kore-eda.
As a Japanese director who gradually opened up his global fame, Kore-eda returned to Japanese after collaborating with Korean filmmakers on "The Broker", which made many audiences full of expectations.
The Broker was nominated for last year's Palme d'Or
On the other hand, the first time to cooperate with Netflix, which has strong financial resources, to stream film and television dramas, it is also expected that this director will have more opportunities and space to make different works than before.
As a manga drama, "The Chef of the Maiko House" is adapted from the manga of the same name created by Aiko Koyama, and has already received high attention and praise in the serialization.
It didn't take long for the work to get an anime adaptation, and the famous voice actress Kana Hanazawa also served as the voice of the protagonist Nogetsu Kiyo.
Anime version of "Maiki's Cook"
This time, "The Chef of the Maiko House" is adapted in the form of a live-action drama, and the resources and main creative lineup integrated behind the scenes are more powerful.
The director is Hirokazu Kore-eda, who is responsible for controlling the style and quality of the series overall, and serves as producer, chief director and screenwriter at the same time, and the heroine is played by Nana Mori ("3 Years A Class"), a popular post-00s star in the past two years.
The supporting actors are also new and old combinations, bringing together three generations of well-known actresses from old, middle and young generations.
There is Keiko Matsuzaka ("Kamata March" and "The Story of Shinjiro"), who was a hit in the 80s, and Takako Tokiwa, who is familiar to Hong Kong film fans at the beginning of the new millennium (who collaborated with Leslie Cheung on "The Myth of the Star and Moon" and "A Tiger" with Andy Lau), and Ai Hashimoto, who is well known to mainland audiences for her "Confessions" and "Little Forest" series.
In addition, Masaya Nakagawa ("Deeper than the Sea", "Thief Family"), who has a good performance in Kore-eda's films, plays a calm and charming bartender.
Therefore, judging from the configuration in front of and behind the scenes, "The Chef of the Maiki House" is full of highlights.
In terms of story, the series revolves around two young girls from Aomori Prefecture, Kiyo (played by Nana Mori) and Pansy (Natsuki Export), who go to Kyoto to learn their skills and become maiki.
But the process was not easy.
Two girls who had just graduated from junior high school began their apprenticeships in a house-gata called Shuo, where they not only had to learn dance, musical instruments and etiquette on time, but also helped with chores.
Naturally intelligent and resilient, Pansy is quickly recognized by her maiko teacher and regarded as a rising star in the future maiko industry;
In contrast, Ji Dai's talent is dull, and her abilities are not up to standard, which makes the teacher very angry, the key is that she is silly all day and unmotivated.
Only three months later, Ji Dai was dissuaded by his teacher. Whether to find a way to stay in Kyoto and be with her good sister Pansy, or return to her hometown in ashes, Ji Dai was deeply confused.
Fortunately, Azusa of Yagata valued Jiyo's cooking ability, and the previous cook was unable to work due to illness, so she asked Jiyo to succeed Yagata's new cook...
There are only nine episodes of the series, and there are not too many plot twists and dramatic conflicts overall, the stupid Jiyo gradually finds his self-worth by learning to cook, while Pansy eventually becomes a maiko with high hopes for her strong self-discipline.
Of course, in this process, several important female supporting actors also have their own choices and troubles.
Hyako Hashimoto, a top maiko played by Ai Hashimoto, has to give up between love and career; Maiko Yoshino, who once gave up halfway, also has to lean one side between a stable married life and a return to the rivers and lakes;
The contradiction between the family relationship between Azusa's mother and her rebellious daughter, and the love of the old mother Miss Chiyo, are also intertwined with the acrostic joys and sorrows in the maiko industry.
However, perhaps the most attractive thing about "Maiki's Cook" is its alternative interpretation of the theme of cooking.
As a food fan, it is neither like the Hong Kong-style comedy "God of Food" and "Golden Jade Full Hall", which play tricks in the production process, nor does it pour out the culture and history of food endlessly like the "China on the Tip of the Tongue" series.
It is more like a heart-to-heart drama that conveys human feelings with food and uses ingredients to convey the taste of the world.
In the first episode, Ji Dai cooks for the injured old cook, and uses a tomato curry to introduce the secret of daily meals: ordinary. Consistently providing health and comfort in ordinary tastes is the highest requirement for everyone's daily diet.
The second episode of "Parent-child Don", although simple smooth egg chicken rice, but far-reaching, chicken and egg are the relationship between mother and child. It was with this meal that Ji Dai won the recognition of everyone in Yagata and became an official member of the big family.
A stewed eggplant in the fourth episode breaks the last line of defense in Pansy's father's heart; The Kyoto udon noodles in the seventh episode give the sisterhood between Jiyo and Pansy a "strong" taste.
Throughout the nine episodes, each episode will show a food carefully made by Ji Dai, and this food becomes the symbol of the core emotion of the episode.
Food not only provides us with visual enjoyment, but also through it, the heart that has been roughed by life can be healed.
This healer is one of the directors is Hirokazu Kore-eda.
In Kore-eda's previous films, family and warmth are two extremely important labels.
the final bonding of the two families in "Like a Father Like a Son"; In "Sea Street Diary", the four sisters commemorate each other after their father's death;
"Thief Family" is about living a partner's life, and feelings are not distinguished by blood; "The Broker" also tries to express the huddle between temporary "family" members.
This non-blood relationship, or the emotional bond created by non-native family members, is also evident in the play "The Cook of the Maiko House".
In the house, except for Azusa mother and her daughter who are related, the rest of Chiyo-sen, the three official maiko and Kiyo and Pansy are not blood relatives, but they all find their places and fill the space with joy and warmth.
Especially Ji Dai and Pansy, the sisterhood between the two is not like the relationship between bad girlfriends in most film and television dramas.
For example, because you like a boy and turn against each other, or part ways with different life trajectories, or have unequal status and resentment.
Ji Dai and Pansy have a natural tacit understanding at all times. Ji Dai went to climb the mountain to petition, and Pansy waited for his return in the early morning; On the first day that Pansy officially became a maiko, Jiyo fried breadsticks and kept them in the kitchen.
Maiko becomes Pansy's ultimate goal, but for Kiyo, what she really wants to do is cook.
If the ideal is different, you can still complete each other; The attention received is very different, and it does not affect the position of the two in each other's hearts.
It was Hirokazu Kore-eda who did not deliberately exaggerate the love of the two girls, he used the details of food to set off the psychology of the characters, slowly and silently, and gradually enriched the friendship between these two girls, who are not sisters but are better than sisters.
And the performances of Nana Mori and Natsuki, two new-generation actresses of the post-00s, also bloom with a different kind of charm under the lens of Hirokazu Kore-eda, who is good at guiding actors, just like Suzu Hirose in "Haiki Diary"
It was director Hirokazu Kore-eda who took pictures of the two female leads
"The Chef of the Maiko House" currently has a Douban score of 8.3, which is a good word-of-mouth work, but it is not a perfect work.
Because compared with most of Kore-eda's previous high-scoring films, it is too warm and lacks the dark side of reality that it should explore.
For example, although Maiko is not a sex worker, there are not many obscure gray areas in it.
But it is definitely a good healing food drama, which makes you sigh the joy of Xiao Cheng luck and say the confidence of the quiet years.