KJCKorea
Journal Central

The film <Le Grand Chef> and <Le Grand Chef: Kimchi War> are adaptations of infotainment food content cartoon <Le Grand Chef> which focuses sentimental aspect leaving out food information and food expertise. While the film made the episode of mother, tear, laughter downsized to a subplot which does not relate to the theme of film, it emphasizes food porno with the excessive rhetoric and secularism. Adaptation deconstructs the structure of original episodes but highlights the storytelling of antagonism which is embodied through competition. However, the cooking contest went sour as pop-up survival game. The antagonism between Seungchan and Bongju is expressed in opposing visual images where mise-en-scene of Seungchan exposes the traditional Korean food culture of “Eat Together” and “Harmony.” The antagonism between the characters is intended on food nationalism of Anti- and Pro-japan. This antagonism is made unstable by way of succession of ancestor’s heritage, unbalanced information and the appearance of a Japanese as the final umpire. The abstract opposition structure of <Le Grand Chef: Kimchi War> weakens the food nationalism and the equivocal representation of antagonism degraded the original cartoon. It is quite noteworthy of the achievement of the two films adapted from ‘The Youngman Huh Animation’ whose narrative lead the trend of the early 2000’s food content media. However, the two films did not display the originality of the cartoon but exposed limits by way of scant food information and expertise, secular representation of competition system, clumsy touches on food nationalism, and excessive sentimentalism of tears and laghters.

Youngman Huh, Food, Le Grand Chef, adaptation, nationalism, Mise-en-Scène