Movie Review:

“Rice Rhapsody,” a Hong Kong production filmed in Singapore cooks up a storm with Sylvia Chang and Martin Yan, throwing some local actors like Allan Wu and Steph Song into the fray as garnish. The director, Kenneth Bi throws traditional versus modern, east meets west, right versus wrong, love and food into a big wok conjuring an aptly named dish, “Rice Rhapsody.”

The film revolves around the life of Jen Fan (Sylvia Chang) who fears that her third son, Leo (Tan Lepham) might follow in the footsteps of his elder brothers (Alvin Chiang and Craig Toh) towards becoming gay. Kim Chui (Martin Yan), her next-door competitor and her not-so-secret admirer helps her by bringing in a French exchange student (Melanie Laurent) of Leo’s age to live in with her. What ensues is a light-hearted comedy peppered with emotional bits as Jen learns to embrace life.

Revolving around Sylvia Chang’s portrayal of a Singaporean mother with firm traditional values, the film tries to first make the audience at home. She seemed to fit into the role with ease, knowing where and when to throw her “lahs” and “lors”. But, to many local viewers, this is nothing new considering that we’ve had an influx of Hong Kong talent gracing our television sets lately, trying to be Singaporean.

Martin Yan should stick to his day job, period. He seemed to be the most irritating aspect of the film. I felt that he was always trying to eschew his way into the limelight and stealing the thunder from Sylvia Chang. Jen’s three sons were mainly stiff throughout the film. The eldest, played by Alvin Chiang could have been given more room to explore his character, the other half of Singapore’s first same-sex marriage. Such a juicy experimentation gone wrong. Craig Toh’s turn as an effeminate guy falls flat and Lepham Tan’s constant brooding fails to convince the audience that he’s instead filled with much teenage angst (expect for the part when he frenched the French girl). The audience would find it hard to connect with them for they were not able to make things believable.

Melanie Laurent, a Scarlet Johansson look-a-like, could have been the saving grace of the film had she have as much screen presence as Johansson. However, credit is given when its due, Laurent tries her best to bring an exotic charm to the film and teach Jen to embrace her life and accept how we are all connected. Instead, her so-called psychic and “the water goes the other way down in France” character seems like a meager serving of chili shrimp when it could have been chili crab.

Kenneth Bi manages to capture Singapore life beautifully on screen let it be the roads, the Esplanade, a cemetery or even dinner at home. The music by Masahiro Kawasaki, an attempt at some sort of fusion music is commendable but remains forgettable. “Rice Rhapsody” could have been something more had the script been delivered effectively by the actors. Regrettably, it could also have been re-edited for the film veers into the end with a cooking contest hosted by Samuel Chong which results in a caustic mix. The film leaves an aftertaste similar to yesterday’s food being reheated and in its attempt to be like the Meritus Mandarin chicken rice, it becomes a typical hawker centre fare.

Movie Rating: B-

Review by Mohamad Shaifulbahri