1985, Spherical Panavision, Color, 114 min
Director: Juzo Itami
Cast: Tsutomu Tamazaki (Goro), Nobuko Miyamoto (Tampopo), Koji Yakusho (gangster in the white suit), Ken Watanabe (Gun), Rikiya Tasuoko (Pisken), Kinzo Sakura (Shohei), Mampei Ikeuchi (Tabo, Tampopo’s son), Toshi Kato (master of ramen making), Shuji Otaki (rich old man), Fukumi Kuroda (gangster’s mistress), Setsuko Shinoi (rich old man’s mistress), Toriko Doguchi (girl oyster-fisher)
The search for the perfect ramen (noodles) recipe is interwoven with a dozen seemingly unrelated vignettes all tied to the joys of food in a shameless celebration of eating. The film satirizes at spaghetti westerns, the yakuza, and the iemoto system of knowledge transmission among many other things.
The Plot:
A white-suited Yakuza gangster and his girlfriend take first row seats in a movie theatre. As his goons lay out a feast for them to consume in the theatre, the natty gangster addresses the film viewer via the fourth wall, asking what film they are going to watch and what they are going to eat. Next up is a scene of a young man, Gun, being instructed in the art of how to eat ramen. Yay! Just as he is about to consume his first bite the film suddenly cuts to the interior of a milk truck where the young man in question, it turns out, is reading a story about eating ramen to the cowboy-hat-wearing driver, Goro. The film is only three minutes old and already we have been taken into three nested worlds within the film. The story has made the truckers hungry, and they stop to eat at a little ramen shop. Through a wall of rain they see a small boy being beaten up by several larger children. They chase off the bigger kids and escort the victim into the ramen shop, which is run by his mother, Tampopo ("Dandelion"). Goro and Gun are much less than impressed with Tampopo’s ramen and say so. One of Tampopo’s long-time admirers, a building contractor named Pisken, takes offense and he and his buddies beat up Goro.
The next morning, Tampopo, who has nursed Goro, asks his advice on her ramen. From his replies she believes him to be something of a connoisseur and asks for his help in improving her noodles. Goro reluctantly agrees, and decides the first step will be to find both the perfect noodle and then the perfect soup recipes. The two, with Gun’s help, begin to spy on local ramen shops to hone her skills. Goro also begins to put Tampopo through a vigorous physical training program. As the movie continues, Goro rounds up a group of unlikely homeless gourmets who help Tampopo create the perfect ramen. Even the jealous Pisken is eventually brought in to help, redesigning and rebuilding the interior of Tampopo’s shop.
Meanwhile, the other stories involve eating spaghetti in the soundless manner of abroad, a wife summoned from the edge of death by a desperate husband and family who makes them a last meal and dies with a beatific smile, and the death of the natty Yakuza as he rhapsodizes over yam sausages made fresh from the bellies of winter boars.
At the conclusion, Goro and Gun ride off into the sunset in their horned milk truck.
This is absolutely my favourite film.
Notes:
Director Juzo Itami, who committed suicide in late 1997, was the son of director Mansaku Itami who mostly made films about ronin in the 1930s and 1940s. Juzo Itami had been a welterwight boxer, a band organizer, a commercial designer, a magazine editor, a translator (William Saroyan and Peter Shaffer), a reporter, a talk show host, an award-winning actor and an author.
The director’s wife and youngest son are both featured in the film: Nobuko Miyamoto as the female lead, and her son as her character’s son. Miyamoto is also the star of Itami’s The Funeral, A Taxing Woman, A Taxing Woman Returns, and Mimbo: The Gentle Art of Extortion.
Tampopo earned $3 million in a U.S. release, a sizable amount for a Japanese film at the time.