Kitchen

[Alan Makinen]

At the Chicago International Film Festival this past weekend I saw Yim
Ho's new film Kitchen, a Hong Kong-Japan production. The film is based
on the short story Kitchen, by Banana Yoshimoto. I was quite
disappointed by the movie and then also surprised to find out that
Yoshimoto actually co-wrote the screenplay, significantly altering the
story from the short story version. Among other things, the central
character and narrator is no longer the girl, Mikage (Aggie in the
film), but  Yuichi (Louie in the film), the boy who takes her in.
Yuichi's transsexual mother, Eriko (Emma in the film), dies an even
worse death in the film than in the short story. Where the Mikage
character in the short story is perhaps dreamy in the film she is
positively dopey.

On the Internet Movie Database, I see that Yoshimitsu Morita made a film
adaptation of the story in 1990. Has anyone on the list see it? If so,
how was that version?


-- 
        
Alan Makinen
Chicago