Wide Angle: Stir-fried romance

The new Hong Kong picture, `Kitchen', may not be a treat for cinematic foodies but will certainly provide emotional sustenance

A film from Hong Kong called Kitchen (right) will have many moviegoers licking their lips in anticipation of another tasty treat along the lines of Tampopo, or Eat Drink Man Woman. In fact, the latest work by Yim Ho (the director of last year's The Day the Sun Turned Cold) is a different kettle of noodles altogether. Adapted from the bestselling novel by Banana Yoshimoto, this serio-comic meditation on death, grief and love delicately spins out its philosophy of "change as an essential part of life" with hardly a rice cake in sight.

Seen through the eyes of trendy, young punk Louie (Jordan Chan), the film explores his gradually developing relationship with an orphan called Aggie (Yasuko Tomita), after his mother Emma takes her in. Emma, for those of you who haven't read the book, used to be Louie's biological father, but underwent a sex-change operation after the death of his wife to cope with her loss. Confused? You won't be. Yim Ho's lucid direction mirrors the simplicity of Yoshimoto's prose, creating a psychological landscape of dreamy poetic realism.

Despite the gorgeous look of the film, Ho is reluctant to be compared to that other Hong Kong auteur Wong Kar-Wai. "I think we are on two very different platforms. He's focused on form, I'm focused on content. In Banana's book, she uses striking images to reach out to the audience subconsciously. In the film, I use these images to engage the audience emotionally and develop the story, not just because they're stylistically interesting."

As well as shifting the action of the book from Japan to Hong Kong, Ho switches the narrative perspective from Aggie to Louie, since Aggie's grief-stricken cocoon of self-protection would allow little access to the audience. "If I had adapted it from Aggie's point of view," says Ho. "Most of the philosophical ideas would have been expressed via a voiceover. I tried this with the first version of the script and found it boring."

Happy with the screenplay, Ho set about casting. "I spotted Yasuko Tomita at the Tokyo film festival. I found her face so interesting, it was sweet and sad at the same time, perfect for Aggie." The actor chosen to play Louie was a slightly less obvious choice. "Jason Chan has never done a romantic movie before. He's famous for playing the wise guy, so everybody, including Jason, was very surprised when I chose him. The book says the boy is a sensitive-looking kind of guy, but Chan isn't at all. He looks like a bit of a lad. I thought if I used someone like Chan, who looks like he'd never understand what a girl thinks, it would be very comical."

The role of Emma went to Law Kar-Ying. "Two of my friends came to consult with him on being a woman, his behaviour, the way he carried himself," says Ho. "But he didn't do much Method preparation. In Hong Kong, the actors are very busy, so they can't spend much time preparing for roles. Scripts and characters have to be learned quickly. Movies have to be cooked and sold right away, like fast food.

For his next dish, Yim Ho is going to serve up an action adventure. Turning the Hollywood stereotype on its head, Ho has been struggling to develop this long-cherished project for years while churning out highly individual, philosophical art-house movies. "As a boy, I loved action movies, so it's always been part of me, but writing one is not easy. So many have been made and they're all so alike. Most action films are like watching fireworks in front of the window, you get bored very soon."

`Kitchen' is released on Boxing Day