The God of Cookery

The God of Cookery
Hong Kong film poster
Traditional	食神
Mandarin	Shíshén
Cantonese	Sik6san4
Directed by	Stephen Chow Li Lik-Chi
Produced by	Stephen Chow
Written by	Stephen Chow Vincent Kuk Lou Man-Sang Tsang Ken-cheong
Starring	Stephen Chow Karen Mok Vincent Kuk
Cinematography	Jingle Ma
Edited by	Cheung Ka-Fai
Distributed by	Hong Kong CN Entertainment (DVD)
Release date	1996
Running time	92 minutes
Language	Cantonese
Box office	$40,861,655.00

The God of Cookery (Chinese: 食神) is a 1996 film produced, written, starring, and directed by Stephen Chow.

This is known to be Stephen Chow's first film to utilize deep and sometimes dark themes.

Stephen Chow (the Chinese characters used for Chow's name in the movie are different from Chow's actual name) is a corrupt celebrity chef who secretly knows very little about cooking, runs a successful business empire, and is willing to hawk any product for a price. Arrogant and cocky, Chow is dubbed the "God of Cookery" and appears as a judge for culinary competitions rigged to make him look good.

Bull Tong (Vincent Kuk), posing as an understudy and conspiring with Chow's business partner (Ng Man Tat) to overthrow him, exposes Chow as a fraud during the opening ceremony of Chow's 50th restaurant. Bull is declared the new "God of Cookery" and takes over Chow's corrupt empire. Ruined, Chow lives on the streets in an area known as Temple Street. There, he orders a bowl of "Assorted Noodles" from disfigured and uncouth food cart owner Turkey (Karen Mok), and criticizes it for its lack of taste, terrible preparation, and unsanitary ingredients. During a heated exchange, Chow demands respect and reveals himself to be the fallen "God of Cookery", but then begs her for some money. Thugs beat him for his panhandling, but Turkey orders them away, taking pity on Chow and giving him a bowl of barbecue pork on rice. Chow is moved and declares it delicious.

Turkey and her rival street vendor, Goosehead (Lee Siu-Kei), conduct gang warfare to see which vendor can sell the two best-selling dishes: beef balls and "pissing" shrimp. Chow manages to unite the two rival vendors by combining the two dishes into a new dish, "Pissing Beef Balls", which the three of them could sell together. It becomes a huge success, and the vendors convince Chow to enroll in a culinary school in order to reclaim the title he lost, but not before he discovers that Turkey idolized Chow as the "God of Cookery", and received her scarred appearance after fighting a local gang leader who ruined her poster of Chow.