serealo clementiah yarmyllah
Trinidad Baltzell
Hunger is 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]
I mean, it was, after all, a Netflix original. How could they steer me wrong? They brought me GLOW, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt and the holy grail of binge watching: Stranger Things (totally biased on this one, I mean, the town is my last name). So when I read the description of Insatiable, I was sold: former fat girl in the Deep South seeks revenge on everyone who treated her poorly by becoming a beauty queen. I used to be fat! In the Deep South! I would have loved to get revenge on a few redneck bullies of yesteryear (uh, the early 2000s)!
Netflix subscribers can expect more price hikes as the company looks to grow revenue in 2024. In its Q4 2023 letter to shareholders, Netflix also revealed plans to eliminate the cheapest ad-free plan available to users.
Netflix has attributed its price hikes to added features, like 4K streaming and gaming. But subscription fees remain the biggest source of revenue for Netflix, giving it obvious reason to leave a door open for even more price hikes in the near future.
Netflix has also used price hikes to encourage users to subscribe to its ad tier, where it has made more average revenue per user. Netflix with ads has cost $6.99/month since launching in November 2022 and has seen feature improvements, like moving from 720p resolution streams to 1080p.
In another attempt to push subscribers into watching ads on Netflix, the streaming company stopped offering new subscribers the aforementioned $11.99/month, ad-free Basic plan. It included 720p resolution, downloadable content, and support for one device. The change spiked the cheapest price for ad-free Netflix 55.06 percent to $15.49/month.
Netflix originally cut the Basic plan in Canada before following suit in the US and UK. Combined with the fact that most of Netflix's North American users are from the US, it's expected that Netflix will cut the Basic plan in the US, too.
Netflix's letter said ad membership grew when it stopped offering the Basic ad-free plan to new subscribers. Ad tier membership grew almost 70 percent quarter over quarter in Q4 2023. The tier has over 23 million subscribers, per Bloomberg.
During an earnings call on Tuesday, Netflix co-CEO Greg Peters noted Netflix's 2024 priorities as including "pricing optimization" to help improve operating margins and grow revenue and its ad business.
But despite currently besting competitors in subscriber count and cash flow, Netflix faces similar challenges when it comes to wooing advertisers that may be unaccustomed to working with streaming services (which previously had limited advertising opportunities). While Netflix has seen revenue grow from other efforts, like password crackdowns and price hikes, it plans to focus heavily on scaling its ad business over the coming years.
Netflix is already trying to strong-arm customers onto its ad plan. The streaming bundle plan that T-Mobile offers will no longer include ad-free Netflix. Anyone who had ad-less Netflix through a T-Mobile bundle is getting downgraded. Peters said this week that under the previous bundle, "it was hard to make the economics work for everyone."
On Tuesday, Netflix announced a $5 billion, 10-year deal to stream World Wrestling Entertainment's (WWE's) Raw live on Netflix. The company was able to win a deal out from long-time Raw network USA, which is owned by NBCUniversal. NBCUniversal's Peacock streaming service also has the rights to some WWE events. But Netflix's seizure of Raw illustrates its interest in ad dollars from live sports and its pull and budget compared to aging broadcast and cable networks. Looking ahead, we expect to see Netflix consider additional live events that can appeal to advertisers.
Netflix said this week that it's not anticipating the same amount of subscriber growth that it enjoyed in 2023 in 2024. But it does expect double-digit revenue growth. That newfound money has to come from somewhere. If Netflix can't pull it all from new subscribers, it will force it out of existing customers through higher prices and ads.
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