Released in September 2019, "The Taste of Pepper" is an urban emotional drama starring former Hong Kong box office champion Zheng Xiuwen (2000 "Lonely Man and Widow"), the film invited tacit partners Andy Lau and Ren Xianqi, but still responded to the box office. However, this is not the point, because this is a film that Zheng Xiuwen himself is not optimistic about the box office, "The Taste of Pepper" is aimed at word of mouth, which is a work that Zheng Xiuwen has to rely on his own film expression to compete for the Academy Award. The film is based on Zhang Xiaoxian's novel "My Love Is So Spicy", telling the warm story of gathering and dispersing in the world, obviously it is a sweet movie, but why is it called "The Taste of Pepper"?
"The Taste of Pepper" tells the story of a seemingly irresponsible father who is slowly understood by his three half-daughters after his death: the father played by Zhong Zhentao experienced three relationships and left three daughters when he was young, and chose to hide this fact because of self-blame and not wanting his daughters to influence each other, and the three daughters each lived in their own city, longing for fatherly love but lacking fatherly love. And all this was changed after Zhong Zhentao's death, the first meeting of the three sisters was at their father's funeral, three people with completely different personalities walked together on the road of remembering their father together, they ran the hot pot restaurant left by their father, and slowly re-acquainted with their father, knew their relatives, and knew the people around them.
Peppercorns, one of the commonly used seasoning accessories, taste hemp, spicy, astringent, irritating, the first contact is difficult to adapt, but has the effect of warm in the air, cold, pain relief, insecticide and so on. "The Taste of Pepper" tells the story of family affection between people, but it is named after "Peppercorn", which values the complex and profound feelings brought by Peppercorns, and "Peppercorns" in the movie has at least three meanings:
The first layer of meaning clearly refers to the physical peppercorns in the father's hot pot restaurant: the three sisters' main memories of their fathers are completed in the hot pot shop, and the biggest feature of the hot pot shop is the large and small peppercorns that are placed everywhere. The daughters studied the recipe of their father's hot pot base in the shop full of peppercorns, remembered what their father had said and done here, and pinned their thoughts on their father in the peppercorns;
The second meaning of pepper refers to the father's love: the taste of pepper is to use one pain to cover up another kind of pain, which seems to be pain, but it is actually love. The father is full of love for his daughters, but he has his own unspeakable bitterness, and can only choose to hide from a distance and silently pay attention, pay attention to their growth, care about their lives, because they are afraid that they will hurt them again, just like a jar of pepper that locks himself in a glass bottle;
The third meaning of pepper refers to each of us, everyone in life is a peppercorn, the heart is hot but the surface is full of stubbornness, we insist on our emotions and persistence, but do not know how to get along better with others, obviously love to the end but becomes a misunderstanding, Zheng Xiuwen and his father is like this, and Andy Lau is also like this, the second sister and their mother is like this, the third sister and their mother-in-law are also like this.
At the end of "The Taste of Peppercorns", Zheng Xiuwen fantasizes about a family of four eating hot pot together in a closed hot pot restaurant, which is reminiscent of the final ending of "Godfather 2", when Mike Corleone recalls the scene when the family sat at home and ate. When a person has experienced enough, the most memorable thing is the warmth when the family is reunited, which may be the reason why "The Taste of Pepper" should be named after "Pepper". The taste of peppercorns, the five flavors are mixed, but the aftertaste is endless, the growth of life, family affection, love are like eating a peppercorn, there will be pain, there will be burning, there will be numbness, but the final taste must be warm.
If life is always willing, it will not be too deeply felt. Life is a road full of thorns and bumps, even for Zheng Xiuwen. Once the most popular female singer and the most appealing female artist in Hong Kong, at the peak of her acting career, she suffered from illness for many years, experienced various sweetness and betrayals in love, and in the end she still insisted on a positive life and work with confidence. Therefore, in "The Taste of Peppercorns", in addition to the attachment to the father and family affection, there is also a love for life, and the taste of life may really be like the taste of peppercorns, which is astringent, hemp, fresh, spicy, and everything is in their own taste.