rice rhapsody may sound promising and in term of make it way to several film festival and a pretty well know cast and crew ( taiwanese award win actress sylvia chang and world acclaim celebrity chef martin yan a the lead cast and with jackie chan a the executive producer ) and and together with the help of singapore film commission . however and the serving of chicken rice turn out to be tasteless and tough . this be young director kenneth bi debut feature and where rice look like a movie from the final year student in a movie school do it final year project . sylvia and martin be horribly miscast a the role of jen and a chicken rice seller and and kim shui and a duck rice seller . jen and kim shui be rival in business and a their stall be just opposite one another . however and kim shui be a bachelor who admire jen and and try all way to woo jen . jen no longer trust any man after her husband leave her 16 year ago . with her secret chicken rice recipe and she bring up her 3 son . however and daniel and harry and who be the 1st and 2nd son and turn out to be gay . jen place her bet on leo and the young son and who be barely a teenager around 15 and 16 year old and to breed an offspring for the family line . fear that leo would follow his brother footstep and jen and kim shui try all way to match him with sabine and a female french exchange student who be come to singapore . a night of passion with sabine and the loss of his bestfriend make leo discover his sexual orientation . kim shui come out with new duck dish that beat jen chicken rice business . double pressure come down together make jen loses hope on the people around her and except for sabine and where sabine teach jen that there be more thing in life to look out for . it just sound like your typical family drama and where someone want to go their way and while others be try to pull the whole family together . in term of be a family drama and rice have achieve only about 50 % of it . the main focus on the film be all about how jen be try to prevent leo from become a gay and so a to pass down the family line . place sylvia chang the role of a typical singaporean housewife be a bad choice . poor language usage of dialogue in the film worsen the whole movie . no matter how hard sylvia try to speak like a singaporean woman and her american accent english simply pull her effort down and make whatever she say sound pretendous . place martin yan a kim shui be the bad choice . his heavy american accent english do not sound like a typical singaporean hawker who own a duck rice stall at your neighbourhood singaporean coffeeshop ( and i do not mean starbucks in american term . ) instead of use chinese dialect and mandarin and singapore style english in the film and perfect english be use instead and give singaporean audience a good laugh and where two non singaporean chinese be choose to play singaporean . it put the audience into a big puzzle represent be this an total english speaking singapore production . the end of the film lack punch and where leo and jen participate in a cooking competition . no tense atmosphere and no grand showdown and just the love between a mother and her son . apparently and wrong location be choose for both the mother and the son to express their love for each other . though rice be slap with an m18 rating ( which refers to not suitable for audience age 18 and below ) for discuss and glorify homosexuality and rice be not a gay drama . it look into the love between a mother and her gay son and her acceptance of homosexuality and how to strike a balance between her traditional value and homosexuality . if more detail could be put in and have singaporean cast to play the role of jen and kim shui and the chicken rice would taste much more well .