Using the short film format to its absolute best by refusing to waste a second of its economical twelve-minute runtime, Shrimp Fried Rice (2025) is a strangely life-affirming little fantasy which pulls apart the central idea behind – and yes, I mean what I’m about to say – Ratatouille – and turns it into a gloriously weird skit which, as delightfully crazy as it is, somehow also manages to fit in a very human story, too. Kudos to director and co-writer Dylan Pun for doing so much, so neatly.
We start with a plate’s eye view in a restaurant as a serving of (frankly delicious-looking) food is carried to a dining table. As this happens, a diner asks if he can send his compliments to the chef. Erm, okay, says the server – but it turns out that the chef isn’t actually Dave, the friendly guy in the chef’s hat who waves back at them. It’s the guy under the chef’s hat – in this case, a talented, if rather arrogant shrimp and yes, he talks.
Don’t waste time overthinking the presence of a smartass shrimp, because we’re moving onto a backstory. Firstly, the ‘shrimp fried rice’ served to great aplomb by this particular downtown restaurant is fried rice made by a shrimp, not containing shrimp: now there’s some semantics which will stay with you. In this particular universe, it’s not just rats who can command the humans to culinary greatness; any animal that can sit on a person’s head can potentially do it. And it’s popular enough for there to be a popular cooking show competition all about it, where the best animals compete against one another to win a title.
Our wisecracking shrimp (yep, there’s a shrimp puppet) is perhaps understandably proud of what he has achieved in his career and he wants to win that title, come what may. He’s competitive, has no time in particular for a certain (literal) ‘rat bastard’ standing in his way, and – sad to say – he’s not really motivated by his human’s wellbeing. Pride comes before a fall, Shrimpo.
Shrimp Fried Rice feels for all the world like a crazy idea which haunted Pun until he gave it an outlet, and if this is the case, I hope it has helped both him and the team to bring this crazy idea to life. What’s especially impressive, though, is that the film even manages to sneak in a few real-life issues about the exploitation of workers (#TeamDave) but never losing sight of the overall brisk, fun vibe, as any sudden shift of this kind could have derailed the whole film. No such problem here – from the self-aware censorship of the very word Ratatouille (they don’t want to bait Disney after all!) through to the script, the snappy dialogue, the edits, the soundtrack and all the fun little inclusions, everything in Shrimp Fried Rice works incredibly well. It’s bizarre, original and very funny. And just to repeat: they’ve even made the food look good.
Shrimp Fried Rice (2025) featured on 28th July at this year’s Fantasia Film Festival.