General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

Fagara

Fagara (花椒之味, Hua jiao zhi wei) is a 2019 Hong Kong family drama directed by Heiward Mak, in which three half-sisters from Hong Kong, Taiwan, and mainland China meet for the first time at their father's funeral and gradually come to run his hot pot restaurant together.¹ It was produced by Ann Hui and adapted from a 2010 novel by the popular romance author Amy Cheung Siu-han.²

Key fact	Detail
Original title	花椒之味 (Hua jiao zhi wei); English title refers to the Sichuan peppercorn (fagara) central to the family's hot pot restaurant¹
Director / producer	Heiward Mak; produced by Ann Hui and Julia Chu²
Source	Adapted from Amy Cheung's 2010 novel My Spicy Love²
Lead cast	Sammi Cheng (Acacia), Megan Lai (Branch), Li Xiaofeng (Cherry), with Kenny Bee as the father Ha Leung and a cameo by Andy Lau²^•¹
Release	Premiered in China on 24 August 2019; screened at the Busan International Film Festival on 5 October 2019; Hong Kong theatrical release 12 September 2019³
Runtime and languages	118 minutes in festival listings (some distributors list 119 to 120 minutes); Cantonese and Mandarin¹^•⁴
Reception	100% on the Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer from 8 reviews, with a 75% audience score; 1 win and 11 nominations at the Hong Kong Film Awards⁵^•⁶

Spoilers

Plot

Acacia (Sammi Cheng), a Hong Kong travel agent, learns of the sudden death of her estranged father, Ha Leung (Kenny Bee), and is left to arrange his funeral and deal with his hot pot restaurant, along with the debts attached to it.²^•⁷ At the funeral she discovers that he had two daughters she never knew existed: Branch (Megan Lai), a competitive pool player in Taiwan entangled in a damaging relationship with her mother, and Cherry (Li Xiaofeng), a livestreamer from mainland China under pressure from her grandmother to marry.²^•⁸^•⁷

The Busan festival synopsis describes the sisters sharing memories of their father one by one, each finding the father in the others' memories strange and unfamiliar. As they exchange their resentment of him alongside their love, they come to understand his choices, and when they realize what the hot pot restaurant meant to him they decide to reopen it.¹ Andy Lau appears as Kwok Tin-yan, Acacia's ex-husband, in a supporting role.¹

Production

Heiward Mak wrote and directed the film, and is credited with the screenplay, based on Amy Cheung's novel.⁹^•⁷ Mak had won Best Screenplay at the 2011 Hong Kong Film Awards for Love in a Puff, and Fagara was her sixth feature.⁴ The South China Morning Post's review called it her return to feature directing after the poorly received Ex (2010) and Diva (2012).²

The production companies included Media Asia Film, Emperor Motion Pictures, Lajin Film Co., and Dadi Film, with music by Yusuke Hatano and cinematography by Yip Siu-ki (S.K. Yip).⁴

Release

The film premiered in China on 24 August 2019 and opened theatrically there on 6 September, followed by Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taiwan on 12 September, Canada and the United States on 13 September, and a Busan International Film Festival screening on 5 October 2019.³ It later screened at festivals including the Five Flavours Asian Film Festival in Poland, where it received its European premiere, and the San Diego Asian Film Festival.¹⁰^•⁸ It was included in the touring Making Waves: Navigators of Hong Kong Cinema program as an example of Hong Kong's new generation of prominent female filmmakers.¹¹

Reception

Critical response. On Rotten Tomatoes the film holds a 100% Tomatometer score from 8 reviews, with a 75% audience score.⁵ Edmund Lee of the South China Morning Post gave it 4.5 stars out of 5, calling it an exquisite and quietly poignant drama and a front-runner for the next year's Hong Kong Film Awards.² The Los Angeles Times described it as a sincere entry in the genre of family dramas involving culinary legacy, and the Hollywood Reporter credited the three lead performances with keeping the material from becoming sentimental.⁵ Reviewers also noted the film's transnational framing: the Cinema Escapist critic observed that the story of sisters from Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the mainland reinforces the idea that the components of the Greater Chinese community share similarities rather than differences.⁵

Awards. At the Hong Kong Film Awards the film received 1 win and 11 nominations, and it also earned a nomination at the Hong Kong Film Critics Society Awards.⁶ IMDb records 1 win and 16 nominations in total across ceremonies.¹² Sammi Cheng's performance was widely discussed; a later SCMP profile called Fagara an awards darling and noted that Cheng was again passed over at the Hong Kong Film Awards despite the role being among her best.¹³

Themes

The film's title refers to fagara, the Sichuan peppercorn that gives the family restaurant its identity, and food functions as the medium through which the sisters process grief; the Polish festival notes placed it in the tradition of Ang Lee's Eat Drink Man Woman, released twenty-five years earlier, as a contemporary portrait of family bonds around the dinner table.¹⁰ The Seoul International Food Film Festival, which screened it in 2020, grouped it with films focused on family relationships and cultural differences.¹⁴

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Drama and biographical films (individual works) › Drama films 2015 to 2019 › Drama films 2019

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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