Cannibal Mukbang (2023) Review
CANNIBAL: “Any animal that eats its own kind”
MUKBANG: “A video, usually posted online, featuring a person eating large quantities of food, often while talking to the audience as if sharing a meal with them”
Shy and looking for love, Mark (Nate Wise) quickly becomes smitten with the outgoing and mysterious Ash (April Consalo), who somehow, much to his surprise, reciprocates the attraction. But as his feelings for her intensify, so does his unexpected submersion into Ash’s biggest love: the wild world of mukbanging. And with it, lots of bloodshed.
CANNIBAL MUKBANG is director Aimee Kuge’s debut feature film. It explores our relationships with food, sexuality, and revenge and asks, “How far would you go in the name of love?” Aimee wrote the script for CANNIBAL MUKBANG while experiencing a period of disordered eating and ending toxic relationships. This disordered eating led her down a mukbang rabbit hole.
I anticipated CANNIBAL MUKBANG being a low-budget quickie that focused more on gore and dispensed with any discernible storyline whatsoever. Imagine my surprise when I found out that this was more a blossoming central relationship and less about spilling copious amounts of the red stuff instead. That is not to say that this not blood spillage or, as the title suggests, cannibalism, however this is less the exploitation flick than the film’s title would suggest.
Nate Wise and April Consalo, as the central couple whose romance takes centre-stage, are both engaging and convincing. There is nothing new here story-wise but that does not matter as it is so winningly played and so well directed that you become fully engaged all the same.
Available to buy or rent on Apple TV, Google, YouTube, and Amazon Prime from June 9