Before I begin, allow me to offer up a word of advice; do not attempt to watch this film on an empty stomach. Tampopo is filled with more delicious-looking bowls of ramen noodles than you can shake a chopstick at. If you sit down to watch this film without having eaten a hearty dinner before hand, you will be miserable the entire while as you sit before the screen, salivating and wishing to god that Tampopo's noodle joint delivered intercontinentally. And yet, you'll be unable to pull yourself away from your television to cook your own thing of noodles; the film will not allow you to do so.

Itami Juzo's Tampopo is an incredibly engaging film. Loosely, it tells the story of a widow named Tampopo (played by Miyamoto Nabuko) who is attempting to run the family's noodle shop after the death of her husband. Unfortunately, Tampopo is not the greatest of cooks, and her bowls of ramen fall short of the rigorous standards of the city's noodle connoisseurs. Enter Goro (played by Yamazaki Tsutomu), the rugged, taciturn, cowboy hat-wearing truck driver who rides into town along with his young sidekick on a cattle horn-bedecked diesel truck. After saving the young son of the noodle bar proprieter from a group of neighborhood kids and defending the honor of the lady, Goro is beaten senseless by a gang of ruffians led by the local general contractor. After spending a night unconscious in Tampopo's home, Goro offers a critique of Tampopo's noodles: they're really just not very good. Tampopo begs the cowboy to help her master the art of ramen, and Goro takes up the challenge.

While the plot of the film ostensibly traces Tampopo and Goro's quest for the perfect bowl of ramen, Itami uses an episodic approach to explore a larger question: that of the place of food in Japanese culture as a whole. The Tampopo plot is continually interrupted, as the camera will turn its attention to another person or some passerby on the street, and follow them on their own food-related adventures. The secondary characters that are presented in these brief episodes are all vividly depicted and engaging. Their scenes are almost always hilarious, sometimes steamy and even twisted; we are given glimpses of charm school rituals, improper behavior at business luncheons, kinky things that a person can do with a little salt and a few live shrimp or an oyster, old men nearly choking on mochi, homeless folks who are also gourmets, the role of food in the family, and much more. All in all, food is more than merely a prop in Tampopo; it almost becomes a character in its own right, capable of inciting and revealing love, passion, and all sorts of humor.

Tampopo is ultimately a light-hearted, feel-good film. Its plot follows the standard Western formula; the sight gags, sometimes upheld and often shattered stereotypes, and the ridiculousness of the plot itself all contribute to this being a film that makes a person want to smile. That is in addition, of course, to wanting to run out and eat large quantities of Japanese food.



Recommended: Yes