YeinJee's Asian Journal

“Le Grand Chef” (식객 – Shikgaek) is a Korean movie based on Heo Yeong-man’s popular comic book. The movie was directed by Jeon Yun-su and starred Kim Kang-woo, Lee Hana and Lim Won-hie etc.

Le Grand Chef synopsis

Sung-chan (Kim Kang-woo) and Bong-ju (Lim Won-hie) were apprentices at a renowned Korean restaurant; Sung-chan was seen as the best candidate to take over the restaurant, but suffered a setback when his blowfish dish poisoned some customers and almost killed them.

Sung-chan retired from cooking since then and became a farmer in the countryside; while Bong-ju took charge of the restaurant and became a powerful and famous chef.

A few years later, a nationwide cooking competition has started to find the right heir for a symbolic knife that once belongs to the last Korean royal chef who cut his arm to show his loyalty to the king following the Japanese invasion which ended the Chosun Dynasty in early 20th century.

The rivalry between Sung-chan and Bong-ju is set to ignite again, as both their grandfathers were the students of the last royal chef.

Sung-chan didn’t plan to compete in the competition initially, but changed his mind after some persistent persuasion by an energetic reporter Jin-su (Lee Hana). Bong-ju, knowing how strong an opponent Sung-chan is, has started using all the dirty tricks to defeat Sung-chan…

Le Grand Chef was a huge hit in Korea. The storyline is quite simple and direct; I think the main attractive point of the movie is the cooking and settings. Even if the story didn’t appeal to the audiences, they would be charmed by all the Korean dishes that were showed in the movie.

A drama version of the comic is also produced and is still showing at the time of writing. The drama version starred Kim Rae-won and Nam Sang-mi etc.

Le Grand Chef trailer