Director Sitisiri Mongkolsiri’s newest film “Hunger” has reached the No. 4 spot in Netflix’s top ten popular movies this week, and its popularity can be attributed to its weird scenes and sentimental message.
The thriller, released on April 8, is set in Bangkok, Thailand, and opens with the main character Aoy (Chutimon Chuengcharoensukying) in her restaurant when one of her customers offers her a better job position. She accepts and begins working under a famous head chef named Paul (Peter Nopachai Chaiyanam).
When Aoy enters Chef Paul’s kitchen, she quickly learns that he is a hard-core teacher who has no problem disrespecting or firing any of his staff. He is intense and obviously passionate about his job.
Initially, the movie feels like it would be horror due to the eerie music and Chef Paul’s relationship with his staff, which seems oddly cult-like. In fact, the first dish Aoy is told to serve is titled “Flesh and Blood”: a blend of meat and red sauce that makes it look less like food and more like roadkill.
There are also a variety of unexpectedly gory scenes, including one where Chef Paul murders a toucan and cooks it for his guests. There are depictions of a brutal murder-suicide and Chef Paul being stabbed by one of his staff members.
Despite the gruesome scenes, “Hunger” is not a horror movie, but just a strange film about learning to be satisfied with what you have. Aoy learns this lesson after she quits working for Chef Paul and achieves fame on her own. Although she reaches this point, Aoy is still not genuinely happy.
In the end, both she and Chef Paul are invited to cater the same party and it turns into a showdown. They competed for the audience’s favor and Aoy decided to cook a dish that her mother taught her called “Crybaby Noodles.”
This dish holds sentimental value for her because her family grew up poor, but her mother managed to make delicious food with few ingredients. When the guests loved the dish and its backstory, Aoy realized that food doesn’t need to be expensive for it to be special.
Chef Paul also learns this lesson, and it was his reason for becoming a chef. He reveals to Aoy that he chose the culinary path because he was also poor when he was younger and wanted more than anything to taste expensive food.
One day, he attempted to steal caviar from his mother’s employer and got caught. His mother got in trouble for it and when he was finally able to taste the caviar, he realized that it wasn’t special, just expensive.
Although the message is meaningful, it was quite hard to decipher due to the movie’s length of two hours, which made the message a lot more confusing due to the excessive scenes.
Regardless of the film’s duration, it was still interesting to watch and created suspense nicely. Anticipation is built from the very beginning and I would recommend “Hunger” to anyone that enjoys culinary movies and deciphering and analyzing hidden messages.
