The human body cannot subsist on a single food for a very long time (certainly not something like fried dumplings). Dae-Su would have most likely died of organ failure long before his 15 years were up due to severe nutrient deficiencies. It seems odd that Woo-Jin would put Dae-Su in this sort of mortal danger during his imprisonment, since his plans require that Dae-Su survive to be released.
shareYou're right. I've now changed my entire opinion on this film.
Wow
Gosh yes, me too.
shareWrong.
Have none of you ever heard of Stacey Irvine?
She ate nothing but chicken nuggets and the occasional fries for 15 years.
Granted she wasnt very healthy, but it is possible.
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/health/2012/01/27/uk-teen-eats-chicken-nuggets-for-15-years-nothing-else/
Perhaps he put vitamins and nutrients in his water. He put a few chemicals in there already. Doesn't seem too far fetched for him to have thrown some vitamins in there as well.
shareI didn't get the impression that he only ate fried dumplings. Over the course of 15 years, he ate a lot of fried dumplings, and he was sure he'd recognize them when he had them again. But that was the only food with a clue of where to begin because of the words on the paper, so that's where he focused his attention.
shareI didn't get the impression that he only ate fried dumplings. Over the course of 15 years, he ate a lot of fried dumplings, and he was sure he'd recognize them when he had them again. But that was the only food with a clue of where to begin because of the words on the paper, so that's where he focused his attention.
[deleted]
There are plenty of stories about people living off of pure junk food. There's that guy in Super Size me that eats nothing but big macs and I've once read a story of a girl that is still alive on pure cup noodles.
shareTrue, but in an interview SuperSize Me writer/director Morgan Spurlock said he started feeling very ill by the end, he had heart problems, headaches. That being said, he also had a much wider range (McDonalds Menu) than just dumplings, he didn't eat only "big macs", he had to have the entire menu over the 30 days.
I have to agree with op here, sure, you can live on "junk food" (a very wide range) but if he truly did only have dumplings, he would be dead within the first year or two.
Regards
Spurlock was ill because he was a moron. First, he ate everything on the menu and super sized his meal every time they suggested it (most of the time). Second, the dude is a vegetarian who just switched to a high fat and sodium omnivore diet. Of course he got sick.
There are a lot of people in lots of cultures who have lived off very limited diets and were perfectly healthy. For year the Irish ate almost nothing but potatoes with some cabbage thrown in once in a while and a once in a blue moon rabbit. They were very healthy and active. There were Indians who ate almost nothing but acorns. The only issue is when the food is missing some important element like eating nothing but unfortified rice, and even then it doesn't necessarily mean death. Its more likely to just cause specific health problems.
Exactly.
He's survive perfectly fine. The Supersize guy massively overconsumed, which is usually worse. For example, do you think it's healthier to eat McDonalds 3 times per day and nothing else, or just twice? Even if the third meal was a variation on the previous two? Anything from McDonalds is a huge net negative. So unless you're literally starving, it's giving you nothing. What would likely have happened for Oh Dae Su is he'd have got sick of eating the same thing and probably skipped meals pretty regularly. He'd have had vitamin deficiencies, for sure, but dead with two years? Do you honestly think that in the modern world there aren't millions of people living on worse diets around?
___
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qssvnjj5Moo
I honestly must have misunderstood the whole dumpling thing. I thought for sure when they showed a flashback of him eating dumplings in his cell, that he was in fact eating paper and was fantasizing about eating dumplings. And the whole thing with him trying to find the dumpling with the "right" taste was because he had created the perfect dumpling in his head during those 15 years and a real one would never match up. Guess, I was wrong.
Anyway, he didn't only eat dumplings while imprisoned. In the scene where they first show him receiving a tray of food, there is broccoli or some other green vegetable present on the tray. That was the only thing I noticed. I'm also sure they had vitamins in the meds they pumped him with. They showed a scene where he was getting a shot and I assumed it was some kind of nutrients or medicine to keep him from getting sick.
I am fairly certain that the paper you described was a clue for the restaurant. it was intentionally given to him with his dumplings to point him in the right direction... All part of the master plan. I could be wrong but that is how I saw it.
shareIt may not be a particularly healthy diet, but Korean dumplings (mandu 만두) can be fairly nutritious. Aside from the oil the dumplings are fried in, the ingredients include flour for the wrappings, and many different combinations of meat and vegetables.
shareI think a person could live on fried dumplings, as long as they got enough of them. The thing that seems unbelievable is that you could have a diet like that and be in as incredible shape as Dae-su. You can exercise all you want, but it's only going to get you so far without a good diet.
share
You might be surprised about the myriad of things you can put in a dumpling.
______________________
Noah's Ark is a problem.