The Biggest Chinese Restaurant in the World

Weijun Chen China, Denemarken, Nederland, VK, VS 2008 80 min.

With over a thousand employers serving five thousand tables and tons of food passing through the kitchen on a daily basis, the West Lake Restaurant in Changsha, in the South of China, rightfully presents itself as the world’s largest Chinese restaurant. This documentary shines a light on contemporary China as a changing country, by talking to the people working behind and in front of the scenes at this unique venue: from the timid waitress born in a small rural town to the engaged man wrestling with the modern Chinese requirements of the wedding ceremony. The restaurant owner, one of twenty selfmade millionaires in Changsha, opens up about her failed marriage. A stunning portrait of the unique combination of old religious and new capitalist values accompanying China into the twenty-first century.