Grand Maison Paris (PG13)

Starring Takuya Kimura, Ok Taec-yeon, Kyoka Suzuki, Patrick Descamps

Directed by Ayuko Tsukahara

Can anything be more yummy to the Singaporean taste than this combo?

Snooty French finery combined with Japanese no-surrender spirit fronted by still-dishy heartthrob Takuya Kimura.

We’re talking fine wine and dine. Actually, more whine and die.

Because Kimura playing a stubborn, my-way-or-the-highway top chef, Natsuki Obana, needs to get the ultimate three Michelin stars for his super-posh restaurant in Paris. Facing prejudice in not getting the best, very-essential-for-perfection ingredients from aloof ang moh suppliers in the fresh-product market due to him being an Asian foreigner, he vows to quit Paris if he fails in his quest for supreme recognition.

Linguistically, just for the mishmash of languages here — exacto-tyrant Kimura spouts Japanese, Korean, sporadic French for every multi-ethnic kitchen worker to miraculously make very precise food together — this pic deserves an extra half-star. Man, the staff serves the elite feasts with such stopwatch accuracy, even the temperature of the plates is controlled.

Obana's French-cuisine master-mentor, Mr Blancan (Patrick Descamps), reveals that his restaurant space will be given to someone else if his two measly Michelin stars don’t transform into three.

FYI, the beleaguered man’s loyal but stoically suffering sous chef, Rinko Hayami (Kyoka Suzuki as a dignified punching bag), suggests re-locating to an easier pushover place for that coveted honour — “We can try for three stars in New York or Singapore.”

Hey, what lower standards have we been gulping down here?

Now, true aficionados will know that this flick is the sequel to a 2019 Japanese TV series, La Grande Maison Tokyo, in which the same characters opened a French restaurant in Tokyo to also try to nail down three stars. What? Mee pok tah not delish enough?

Grand Maison Paris: Takuya Kimura and Kyoka Suzuki prepare to cook up a storm. 

Returning director, Ayuko Tsukahara, gives the set-up a bigger movie-ish look by having the blond-topped Obana — modelled on Kei Kobayashi, actual Japanese three-star dude in Paris — zip across Eiffel Tower scenery in his motorcycle. She also throws violent French debt collectors into the mix to up the drama.

The story inserts a newcomer, Rick Yuan (Ok Taec-yeon from K-pop boyband 2PM), as a temperamental-genius pastry purist concocting mouthwatering desserts from his Harry Potter hideaway of herbs, spices, vegetables and magic potions.

I can’t pinpoint the contrived squabbling relationship — artistically, brotherly or otherwise — between both zero-compromise food gods, Obana and Rick. I need a drinks maestro to intoxicate me.

But this tale works best, of course, right inside a cosy restaurant setting of pans, bangs and clangs. Because when it comes to a food film, we wanna see those pristine delicacies plonked on the dining table with hidden hell cooking in the kitchen, Gordon Ramsay-style, right?

Basically, this deal is a shallow swallow. An easier slide down the throat than, say, the eccentric The Solitary Gourmet.

Everything here turns out to be exactly as you would expect for a harmless ingestion. Its fusion-food frisson to challenge traditional, stuffy French cuisine, notwithstanding. The way Obana’s off-kilter dishes make his invited guests walk off en masse in an early scene is aristocratic-terrific.

There’s something going on here about French food being an evolving national situation that requires multi-national re-invention. Which makes this show kinda woke in an appetising un-galling Gallic sense.

Giving us a fine Japan-France food fair out of it. (3.5/5 stars) only at The Projector

Photos: Lighthouse Film Distribution