Taiwanese producer Hsu Li-kong, whose credits include Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Eat Drink Man Woman, and his Tangmeng Films are teaming with mainland film outfit Taihe Film And TV Co to co-finance Joyful Reunion, the long-mooted sequel to Eat Drink Man Woman.

Taiwanese filmmaker Tsao Jui-yuan (Love’s Lone Flower, 2005) will direct the $3m (RMB20m) drama which, like the original, centers on an old master chef and the love stories of his three daughters. This time, the chef is a mainland Chinese chef based in Hangzhou City in East China.

Separated from his first love during the 1949 Chinese civil war, the now retired chef tried hard to find the woman who now lives in Taiwan. Meanwhile, one of his daughters falls for a young entrepreneur who has moved to mainland China from Taiwan.

Kenneth Tsang (Memoirs of A Geisha) will play the old chef while Rose Kuei (Eat Drink Man Woman) plays his old lover. Taiwanese actor Blue Lan, mainland actress Huo Siyan and Jiang Mengjie are also in the cast.

Shooting will start in Hangzhou on April 6 and will shift to Taipei starting in early May. The film should open in Taiwan and the mainland in Nov.

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