Ang Lee's Eat Drink Man Woman

Yesterday, I watched the movie "Eat Drink Man Woman" by Ang Lee the film that Tortilla Soup is a remake of. After watching the film I began to wonder why they decided to make an American remake with a Mexican-American family as its main characters. There is something strange about this dynamic. A Mexican-American family who is fairly assimilated to American culture but at the same time, we see that there are certain aspects that still separate them from fully assimilation into American culture. Why is it that they decided to do a remake and specifically with a Latino family. Does this give the film and entirely different meaning from its original or is it still attempting to keep some of the messages that Ang Lee was attempting to portray in the first version of "Tortilla Soup"? In Ang Lee's version there is a concentration of images that emphasize the consumer culture of Taipei, which is where the story is set. This story appears to be more of a message of the loss taste as a symbol for the loss of cultural identity through food. Food has become one mixture that no longer taste like anything specific. This is what the dad in the first film says. Therefore, when he regains his taste, it implies that there is hope for the food and revival of taste/culture that his daughter will bring. In the American version the story and message portrayed could be read similarly, but the fact that it is a Latino family creates a lot of differences. The story becomes more about the birth of a "New Latino" fusion of food, and concentrates more on the family's racial background. This "New Latino" still falls within the Latino category and although it may attempt to assimilate more of its food style with that of American food it is still considered a separate entity.