It has taken me 21 years to get around to watching Tampopo; back in 1987 Film 87 host Barry Norman hailed the movie as a magnificent masterpiece, while Empire magazine called it an erotic gem. Tampopo is to this date the only noodle western, a story of turmoil, and friendships made as Japan moves towards modern society.

Truck drivers Goro and Gun are travelling across Japan, while Goro drives Gun reads a story about a noodle master. The story hits Goro straight in his stomach and he is forced to pull into a noodle bar for food. On arrival however he finds local gangster Pisuken taunting Lai Lai Noodle Bar owner Tampopo. In a stance of defiance against the boss Goro causes fight, the result of this finds Goro deciding to turn Lai Lai from a failing business into the best noodle bar in town. The biggest fault however is that Tampopo’s cooking is not quite up to par, Goro and Tampopo are going to need some good friends and some insider information in order to turn this business around.

Writer/director Juzi Itami’s movie is a real oddity, a fine story based at its centre while surrounding it a series of offbeat completely unrelated stories play out in order to confuse, distract, and probably cause amusement. Examples of these offbeat stories include a man with a bad toothache who later gives a child that can only eat natural food ice cream, an old woman who fingers food, a dying woman forced to cook a final meal for her family, and a couple obsessed with food sex; rather the involvement of food in their sex life. I have to say I found the food sex less than erotic, in fact a bit creepy and generally ugh; I need to point out however with the exception of a close up of one nipple there is no nudity involved in the movie.

Despite its noodle western ranking Tampopo is low on violence high on storyline; with instead of the best gun in the west our heroes look for the best noodle recipe. At this point I must say, that if you have a penchant for noodles you’ll walk away from this movie with a dozen recipe’s to make your noodle dishes more exciting, how’s that for value a movie with a built in recipe book. I personally finished the movie and headed straight to the kitchen, making the best noodles I had ever made. The movie is also a kind of quest, remember the old adventure movies where our hero had to search various lands looking for people to help on the quest, prime examples being Jason & The Argonauts, Sinbad movies, and Krull; here Goro must hunt down people to help Lai Lai transform to Tampopo noodles. Along the way there are some nice touches of insider stealing, examining bins and watching chefs through holes in the wall, if that fails it’s down to a battle of minds to outwit the chefs with the best recipes for noodles.

Tampopo is set in the modern day (well 1985) and mixes sets that express traditional Japan as well as the modern way we think of the country now. At first it is rather strange to see scenes that could have been set hundreds of years ago suddenly confuse as a super fast and ultra modern train whizzes through. The film is almost a statement to the fact that Japan was changing, it almost cries out that despite some more traditional issues some things had moved on way beyond the extent of western culture.
This really is a most unusual movie not really falling into any category; there is a little fighting, some sex, an unspoken romance, adventure, western, feel good movie, and musical. I must say on the fighting front from a country known for their martial arts the fighting is some of the worst choreographed I had ever seen, but maybe that was intentional a snub from the movies director towards every movie at that time from Japan that had to involve martial arts, barbarianism, or swordplay. This director despite the sex has made a very innocent looking movie, almost something the whole family can watch, the aforementioned sex could even to some degree be fobbed off as something else for younger audiences I’d go for the “He is tickling her with that shrimp!” approach, I’m sure it will work if you say it convincingly. Something else the movie delivers is humour, and let’s face it there is not always a lot of laughs in Japanese movies, this movie goes out of its way to illustrate the point that the people of Japan have a most excellent sense of humour.

Towards the end of the movie it’s great to see all the cast working together in order to achieve the same dream; the cowboy traveller, the gangster with a secret business as an interior designer, the homeless man who transpires to be a master chef, truck driver who also is a makeup artist, and the chauffeur driver who excels at noodle making; not forgetting of course Tampopo a woman who has been down trodden all her life.

Not much to report on when it comes to the cast Gun is played by Ken Watanabe whose more recent movies include Batman Begins, The Last Samurai, and Memoirs Of A Geisha. The mysterious food sex man is played by Koji Yakusho whose recent works include Band Of Brothers, Memoirs Of A Geisha, Babel, and the cursed love story Silk. All the movies performers do very well, and I recently read that the director selected the cast specifically that westerners would be able to tell the actors apart, fully in the knowledge that rather like Japanese find us difficult to tell apart we often do they. His cast all have a loveable nature to them, so your warming to them the first few minutes that they are on screen.

The music is very similar to the spaghetti westerns of the 60’s and 70’s, with a touch of the magnificent seven thrown in. It’s actually an odd musical arrangement, one minute western sounding the next almost classical.

Tampopo for those interested translates to Dandylion.

Not something you can buy in UK shops a visit to Ebay wil no doubt secure you a copy of this. But bear in mind those troubled by subtitles this is a Japanese movie spoken in its native tongue, there are nearly two hours of reading to do when it comes to watching this movie. Sadly none of the three released DVD’s have any special features, but this does not detract from the movie being a rare and amusing masterpiece of Japanese Cinema, I thoroughly loved it.



Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Fit for Friday Evening
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older