The Dumpling Queen (NC16) 

Starring Ma Li, Kara Wai, Zhu Yawen, Ben Yuen

Directed by Andrew Lau

This film looks like a CNY food comedy. But it's actually a dramatised biopic, based on a real China rags-to-riches success story, made to not tug, but tear out our heartstrings. We’re talking scene after scene of moving underdog perseverance milked to make us cry.

I fell for it.

A single mother, Zang Jianhe (Ma Li from Successor, Moon Man), from Qingdao, Shandong, lands in Hong Kong in 1977 as an illegal immigrant with two young daughters.

Dumped by her husband for a new family in Thailand, she faces incredible odds, setbacks, a serious back injury and a baffling Cantonese dialect. Overcoming continual blows, including a can't-it-take-anymore farewell moment on a rooftop, she last-resorts to selling homemade dumplings at Wan Chai Ferry Pier. Ignored and fleeing police raids, she fine-tunes her dumplings until they become a global brand called Wanchai Ferry.

“You’re just a mainlander,” the pigtailed country bumpkin is mocked by HK's harsh no-money-no-nothing society. “I’m strong,” Zang slaps her arms, willing to do anything.

It’s really great to hear folks speak in their authentic accents here. Zang's almost lone Mandarin voice taking on the mainly Cantonese pack — led by an excellent Kara Wai (The Invisible Guest) as Hong Jie, her tough but kind tenement-house landlady — is great fun. You haven’t seen tender side-glances until you see Hong as she becomes an ally who empathises with Zang’s plight while secretly adoring her kids.

Zang shouts out the Cantonese pronunciation of “dumpling” to draw customers to a funny disastrous extent. While her children go the other way by turning into Canto-nised locals. Both child actresses playing the girls clinging onto their mum are so sweet you wanna adopt them.

The best scenes are the fresh-off-the-boat adjustment years in that crowded tenement house populated by colourful tenants looking like escapees from In The Mood For Love. But once we see the future mogul getting on the gravy train to success, it becomes less interesting.

Sure, this pic, directed by solid HK director Andrew Lau (Infernal Affairs trilogy) is blatantly manipulative. But it’s also damn effective. A Hallmark-style deal that makes the motherland proud by banking on inspiration and perspiration.

Zang breaks down, gets up, works hard, stays defiant and even shuns love to become a true daughter of the revolution. The way she works various jobs — dishwasher, cleaner, desperate mother — in unbearable pain after a workplace injury is 1870s hardship stuff. Let alone 1970s. “Mainland women are greedy,” her restaurant employer sneers, believing it to be a compensation scam.

Dig this for a Dumpling Rocky knockout. Even a cop raiding her stall and a gangster chief demanding protection money slurp up her dumplings. Zhu Yawen (The Battle At Lake Changjin) shares great touching scenes with Ma as police officer Hua, a fellow Shandong native and Last Good Man, who falls for Zang after chasing her food cart away.

Funny thing is, apart from a mother-in-law from hell, the dumpy-to-dumpling queen actually meets many nice, helpful people here. From said cop and gangster to landlady to a dessert uncle to a Japanese department store boss wanting exclusive rights to her product. FYI. It's Daimaru in the true story.

Making these folks look like a Hong Kong Disneyland cast of characters. We don’t know how much things have been romanticised. Since there are photos of real people, including the actual woman herself — she died in 2019 — and a policeman in the closing credits.

You’re kinda surprised that this flick is helmed by Lau. The scale, sets and performances show top-notch handling. But the director curbs his usual sophisticated edge for a sentimental fool’s sappy straightforward sob-to-top story laced with poignant flashbacks.

“Pinch the middle, squeeze the sides,” Zang instructs her kids as they make the delicacy passed down by her beloved mum back home. Which is what Lau follows as he stuffs this movie with emotional fillings that are tastier than the ingredients.

We submit to The Dumpling Queen's control of our feelings because Ma Li is a very skilful performer who exudes strength just by her eyes.

With her dumpling-making hands, she nails us too. (3.5/5 stars)

Photo: Shaw Organisation