Hunger Games Full Film

[Germaine Greenweig]

Hungeris a 2023 Thai drama film directed by Sitisiri Mongkolsiri and written by Kongdej Jaturanrasamee. It stars Chutimon Chuengcharoensukying as Aoy, a street-food cook who is invited to join the fine-dining industry under the tutelage of the infamous Chef Paul, played by Nopachai Jayanama, with Gunn Svasti as Tone, a supportive sous chef. The film was announced by Netflix in 2022 as one of its six upcoming Thai original productions, and was released on the platform in April 2023.[1][2] The film received mostly positive reviews.

Aoy works as the main cook at her family's street restaurant. She is scouted by Tone, the junior sous-chef of Hunger, a haute cuisine catering restaurant run by the celebrity Chef Paul. Dissatisfied with the direction her life took after high school, Aoy accepts the invitation and auditions alongside a culinary school graduate. Paul has the applicants cook fried rice, and hires Aoy for demonstrating more flair while cooking her dish.

In preparation for a private birthday party hosted by a retired general, Paul demands that Aoy slice and fry wagyu beef to exacting specifications. After many failed attempts, she walks out in frustration, but returns and practices frying the meat all night until Paul finally approves. At the party, Aoy successfully fries the meat in front of the guests, which include entrepreneur Tos, a business rival of Paul. As Aoy continues working with the relentless Paul, she is confronted with the limits of her existing skills and studies more cooking techniques from Tone.

Hunger's soup specialist Tue is fired for stealing ingredients, forcing sous-chef Dang to pick up the slack for Hunger's next client, a family of three. When Paul tries the soup, he tosses it out and remakes it using cheap ingredients on hand, later explaining that he tasted shrimp in the original soup even though he warned his chefs that the client's young daughter had a shellfish allergy. Paul deduces Dang sabotaged the soup due to his jealousy over Hunger's younger chefs surpassing him, and Dang stabs Paul with a knife and storms out. Aoy visits the hospitalized Paul, who opens up about the reason he became a chef. He was the son of a maid for an extravagantly rich family, and his mother was forced to make restitution when he broke a jar of caviar. The incident made Paul realize that the rich viewed food as a status symbol, and he resolved to become a chef of such renown that rich people would debase themselves to have him cook for them. Aoy is distraught by her father suffering a health crisis, as well as learning that Hunger's previous client was an indebted construction executive who killed his wife, daughter, and himself after they ate their meal.

Aoy and Tone leave Hunger after the group is hired by a government official to cook a great hornbill poached from a national park. Aoy is hired as the head chef of Tos's new restaurant, Flame, and becomes famous, while Tone's own restaurant struggles. A celebrity hires both Aoy and Paul to cook for her birthday party, which becomes an impromptu competition as the two chefs vie for the guests' adulation. In the end, Paul wins by serving bowls of hot water, and he explains to Aoy that he won not because his food was superior to hers, but because his reputation made the guests desire anything served by him more. However, a video recording of Paul cooking the hornbill is leaked by Tone, and Paul is arrested. Tos reveals that he and Tone had conspired to use the party to destroy Paul and elevate Aoy; furthermore, the celebrity client picked Paul for her party first, and only hired Aoy because of Tos's lobbying. Disillusioned, Aoy quits Flame. She is welcomed home by her family and resumes cooking at their restaurant.

The film received mostly positive reviews, with an 87 percent rating on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes.[3] The Bangkok Post's reviewer Tatat Bunnag criticized the screenplay and dialogue, but concluded that "despite all the flaws, Hunger is still worth watching, especially for those who love intense drama and exotic settings."[4]

It premiered at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival,[3] winning the prestigious Camra d'Or award for first-time filmmakers.[4] It went on to win the Sydney Film Prize at the Sydney Film Festival, the Grand Prix of the Belgian Syndicate of Cinema Critics, best picture from the Evening Standard British Film Awards, and received two BAFTA nominations, winning one. The film was also nominated for eight awards at the 2009 IFTAs, winning six at the event.

The film stars Fassbender as Bobby Sands, the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) member who led the second IRA hunger strike and participated in the no wash protest (led by Brendan "The Dark" Hughes) in which Irish republican prisoners tried to regain political status after it had been revoked by the British government in 1976. It outlines events in the Maze Prison in the period leading up to the hunger strike and its aftermath.

A new IRA inmate, Davey Gillen, is admitted and categorised as a "non-conforming prisoner" for his refusal to wear the prison uniform outfit. He is sent to his cell naked except for a blanket. His cellmate, Gerry Campbell, has smeared the walls with excrement from floor to ceiling as part of the no wash protest. Gerry's girlfriend sneaks a radio in by wrapping it and storing it in her vagina.

Prison officers forcibly and violently remove the prisoners from their cells and beat them before pinning them down to cut their long hair and beards, grown as part of the no-wash protest. The prisoners resist, with prisoner Bobby Sands spitting into Lohan's face. He responds by punching Sands in the face and then swings again, only to miss and punch the wall, causing his knuckles to bleed. He cuts Sands' hair and beard; the men throw Sands in the bathtub and scrub him clean before hauling him away again.

Later, the prisoners are taken out of their cells and given second-hand civilian clothing. The guards snicker as they hand the clothes to the prisoners, who respond, after Sands' initial action, by tearing up the clothes and wrecking their cells. A large number of riot police enter the prison on a truck. The prisoners are hauled from their cells and forced to run the gauntlet between the lines of riot police, during which they are abused and beaten with batons. Lohan and several of his colleagues then probe prisoners' rectums and mouths, using the same pair of latex gloves for each man.

Sands is visited by Father Dominic Moran and discusses the morality of a hunger strike. Sands tells the priest about a trip to County Donegal where he and his friends found a foal by a stream. It had cut itself on the rocks and broken a back leg. Sands tells the priest that he drowned the foal and that although he got into trouble for it, he knew he had done the right thing by ending the animal's suffering. He says he knows what he is doing and what it will do to him but refuses to stand by and do nothing.

Sometime later, Bobby is well into his hunger strike, suffering from weeping sores, kidney failure, low blood pressure, and stomach ulcers. While Sands lies in a bath, a large orderly comes in to give his usual orderly a break. The orderly sits next to the tub and shows Bobby his knuckles, which are tattooed with the letters "UDA". Sands tries to stand on his own and eventually does so with all his strength, staring defiantly at the orderly but crumples to the floor with no strength left to stand. The orderly carries him to his room. Sands' parents stay for his final days, his mother being at his side when he dies, 66 days after beginning the strike.

A textual epilogue reveals that Sands was elected to the United Kingdom Parliament as MP for Fermanagh and South Tyrone while he was on the hunger strike. Nine other men died with him during the seven-month strike before it was called off, and paramilitary groups murdered 16 prison officers during the protests. Shortly afterward, the British government conceded in one form or another to virtually all of the prisoners' five demands despite never officially granting them political status.

After financing for Hunger was turned down by the Irish Film Board, the film was instead co-funded by Northern Ireland Screen, Broadcast Commission of Ireland, Channel 4, Film4 Productions, and the Wales Creative IP Fund.

In preparation for his role, Michael Fassbender went on a special diet of less than 900 calories a day for ten weeks. After meeting with a nutritionist, he settled on a diet of berries, nuts, and sardines, and underwent periodic medical checks. In an interview with The Telegraph, Fassbender said that he skipped, did yoga, and walked four and a half miles a day, but also added that he had difficulty sleeping, and stopped seeing friends. He also said that the experience made him feel "grateful" and "strong".[5]

The film is also notable for an unbroken 17-minute shot, in which a priest played by Liam Cunningham tries to talk Bobby Sands out of his protest. In it, the camera remains in the same position for the duration of the entire shot. To prepare for the scene, Cunningham moved into Michael Fassbender's apartment for a time while they practiced the scene between twelve and fifteen times a day. According to Fassbender, they did only five takes.[5][6]

Hunger premiered at the Cannes Film Festival on 15 May 2008, where it opened the official sidebar section, Un Certain Regard, sparking both walkouts and a standing ovation,[7] before screening at the Sydney Film Festival on 7 June,[8] the Toronto International Film Festival on 6 September,[9] the New York Film Festival on 27 September,[10] and the Chicago International Film Festival on 19 October 2008.[11]

On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 90% based on 131 reviews, with an average score of 7.80/10. The website's critical consensus states, "Unflinching, uncompromising, vivid and vital, Steve McQueen's challenging debut is not for the faint hearted, but it's still a richly rewarding retelling of troubled times."[12] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 82 out of 100, based on 25 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".[13]

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