Cult Juzo Itami Japan 114 min
A struggling noodle-shop owner sets out to make the perfect bowl of ramen in this gloriously funny “Raman Western” (or is that Spaghetti Eastern?!!!) about food, love and the pleasures of life.
Tampopo is a widow who runs a struggling, mediocre ramen shop. A truck driver named Goro and his sidekick Gun stop by, and after tasting her noodles, Goro takes it upon himself to help her transform the shop into a top-tier ramen restaurant. Much like a martial arts training film, he recruits a ragtag group of mentors and helpers to teach Tampopo everything about broth, noodles, toppings, and the art of running a great restaurant, all building toward her perfecting the ultimate bowl of ramen.
What makes the film distinctive is its structure: woven throughout the main story are a series of loosely connected, often comic and sometimes surreal vignettes about food, eating, and desire — including a recurring thread about a gangster and his lover who use food in increasingly erotic and bizarre ways. These side stories aren't strictly necessary to the main plot but reinforce the film's larger meditation on the sensual, social, and almost spiritual role food plays in life.
"Juzo Itami’s utterly wild Tampopo, the so-called “ramen western” that builds a manic, genre-fusing farce in thrall to the Japanese dining staple, complete with an egg yolk-assisted scene that really has to be seen to be believed" - Guy Lodge (The Guardian)
“Creates a culinary empire of the senses while entertaining an audience like crazy” – Film Comment Magazine
“It unfolds as a series of madcap, effortlessly charming comic vignettes, centred around food and food culture in mid-'80s Japan” – Globe and Mail
Credits:
- Actor
- Ken Watanabe, Tsutomu Yamazaki, Nobuko Miyamoto
- Director
- Juzo Itami
Running Time: 114 min
Year: 1988
Country: Japan
Languages: Japanese
Subtitles: English
Recomended Age: 15
