Who's the Top Chef After All?
Editor's Note: The following contains spoilers for Hunger.
The Netflix movie, Hunger, has been in and out of the streamer's top 10 movies list in recent weeks. It is a look into the cutthroat world of culinary artistry and the elite chefs who strive for perfection in not only the taste of their cuisine but also its appearance. Hunger is the story of a girl named Aoy (Chutimon Chuengcharoensukying) who runs her family's Thai noodle restaurant in the Royal Quarter of the capital city of Bangkok and is forced to make a decision about whether to leave the comfort of her familiar day-to-day life with her loving family to join an elite group of chefs and pursue taking the next step in her career. She has long admired Chef Paul (Nopachai Chaiyanam) from afar and so, she makes the decision to learn under his tutelage at the prestigious Hunger restaurant. After making this tough choice, her life starts to spin out of control as kitchen politics and interpersonal relationships threaten to derail everything she has worked for. It's a blunt commentary by director Sitisiri Mongkolsiri on class division and the artificial qualities valued by the wealthy class.
Chef Paul and Hunger Restaurant
Chef Paul, called "The High Priest" of Thai dining, runs a restaurant called Hunger. He is the top chef in Bangkok and is idolized by everyone in the food business and foodies who want to be associated with the prestige of his name. He comes across very much like a Thai equivalent of Chef Slowik (Ralph Fiennes) in 2022's The Menu (just a little less psychopathic and homicidal). He is austere, stone-faced, and intimidating. He insults his employees and routinely assaults them physically and emotionally. He runs a very tight ship and takes the art of cooking so seriously that his presence in the kitchen makes for a palpably tense workplace environment. Aoy's first encounter with Chef Paul doesn't go well, and she is climbing an uphill battle to win his respect for the rest of the movie.
Aoy Faces a Steep Learning Curve
After being introduced to the seven-person staff, Aoy starts to seek out her niche within the group of apprentices. From her first day in the kitchen, Chef Paul is breathing down her neck and watching her every move to make sure she's good enough for him to devote his precious time to her development. Naturally, Chef Paul doesn't think she can do anything right and scolds her to the point of tears. Aoy starts to stay after hours toiling away at her craft (even falling asleep one night on the kitchen floor) in order to please Chef Paul, but she still struggles with adapting to his unique and strict code of conduct. It is a veritable boot camp for the culinary arts and Aoy has a steep learning curve.
After suffering burns all over her arms and learning how to properly prepare meat to Chef Paul's standards, she has earned a chance to work with the crew as they cater high-profile events throughout Bangkok. Chef Paul meticulously cooks in front of Thai dignitaries and honored guests like a surgical performance artist and is routinely met with rounds of applause. Ominous music plays as the wealthy patrons aggressively and hastily slurp down their raw and fleshy cuts of bloodied meat and special sauces. Meanwhile, Aoy is assigned menial work and is harshly judged under Paul. She is already missing the love and simplicity of her family-run restaurant where cooking was fun, and she was with her family members.
A Romance Starts Cooking in the Kitchen
As Aoy struggles to adapt to the rigidity of Paul's codes, she begins to get help from another chef on the crew named Tone (Gunn Svasti Na Ayudhya), and an intimate relationship begins between them. But when Aoy is surprisingly made top sous chef after just a short time at Hunger and begins to work directly under Chef Paul, jealousy begins to rear its ugly head and the interpersonal relationships inside and outside the kitchen begin to grow more complicated. At the same time, Paul is becoming more unhinged and prone to paranoid and violent outbursts and berating his employees. After Chef Paul reveals to Aoy that he is willing to break the law and kill exotic animals to use as ingredients in his food, she quits and immediately is recruited by a competing restaurateur as the head chef. It's another upstart restaurant that will rival Chef Paul's Hunger.
Aoy Becomes a Top Chef
Upon starting as the head chef at the new restaurant called Flame, Aoy begins to employ the same meticulous and strict traits that she learned from Chef Paul. The owner expresses that he doesn't want Chef Paul's artistry, he wants her to express herself and become her own chef with her own identity. With this in mind, Aoy tries to find her own tastes while striving for perfection. After opening, Aoy is a social media sensation and the new darling of the elite Thai foodie culture as Flame starts to go viral. She immediately starts to rub elbows with the top socialites and influencers in Bangkok. But her relationship with Tone hits a snag when he finally admits that he's always been jealous of her culinary prowess and isn't hungry enough to succeed the way she has.
Does being special mean losing who you were to become who you want to be? Will it cost you everything that you hold close to your heart and to what end? To be special? To be adored? She's lost Tone and barely has a connection with her family as the family business has gone under after her father is hospitalized with an illness. Madam Milky is a top Thai socialite and influencer. She hires both Aoy and Paul to cook at a special dinner party she is having which amounts to a top-shelf cook-off. She calls her dish "Triumph of the New Wave" as a statement of her desire to dethrone Paul as the preeminent chef in Thailand. But she is outdone by the theatrical performance and presentation of Chef Paul, who dazzles with his old-school aggressive approach that he calls "A Sacrificial Feast." The crowd takes to Paul's food like a pack of hyenas and Aoy can only look on in defeat.
The Final Scenes Explained
As Chef Paul believes he has won the favor of the crowd through a fake persona, Aoy sees that she was wrong to worship him and that he's in the business of cooking for all the wrong reasons. Local authorities show up at the party and take Paul in for questioning after it is exposed that Tone leaked footage of Paul feeding an illegal Hornbill to Thailand's Chief of Staff Tui. He is escorted out, and Aoy feels empty, so she walks the old streets of her neighborhood weighing how she has betrayed herself and her loving family for hedonistic, material, and narcissistic pursuits. She comes across the family restaurant and is surprised to see it has gone out of business. When she enters, she sees her father who has recovered from his illness. She finally breaks down into tears and hugs him. One by one, Aoy's family members come out to greet her and welcome her back home. She then informs them that the family restaurant will be the place where she launches her new menu, and it will be a family operation. Aoy has finally realized what really matters in life, and it isn't the restaurant Flame, or beating Chef Paul, it's her family.
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