Kitchen

[Eija Niskanen]

We screened Moritas version at Helsinki Film festival a couple of years
back. It also had changes from the novel, Eriko never dies in this film, and
Mikage never does the food-delivering thing over peninsula. But it was from
Mikages point-of-view. We actually got the print from somewhere in USA, so
maybe you can see it somewhere. It had an interesting flat cheerfulnes, the
two main characters eternally smiling. eija

At 12:32 PM 10/13/97 -0500, you wrote:
>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
>
>
Eija Niskanen, graduate student, UCLA dep. of Film and TV
tel. (310)915-5538 (home in L.A.), (310)206-8170 (Melnitz Movies)
@ Helsinki Film Festival: tel. +358-9-629 528, fax +358-9-631 450 
WWW: http://love_and_anarchy.cultnet.fi/