Tampopo (The Criterion Collection) [DVD]

Should come with a warning: You will want Japanese food after watching this movie!. This is an excellently written, fun, wonderful movie. It is a total western . Acting top notch.

Picture Quality was great. Comes with original Mono Lossless Audio. Perfect scores from me.

I first saw this film in a theater when I was in college then bought it on VHS. When I found it on DVD via Australia I had to buy it. Besides being a delicious comedy it is a great commentary on Japanese culture. If you want a linear tale this movie is not for you as it cuts between being a movie of a movie being shown (a ramen, not spaghetti western), the people watching the movie, and the previously mentioned commentary on Japanese culture and yet it is coherent, this is the magic of Juzo Itami.It plays better on larger and newer (hd) televisions, almost like watching it in a theater again, which is important since it is supposed to be like you are in the theater with the Japanese audience watching the movie that is within the movie. All of the experience seems better than watching it on a smaller, older television from a VCR.Yes there is a movie about a dandelion (tampopo) and ramen, you might even say it is a ramen jedi story as the traveling truckers do save the widow and her ramen restaurant from the bad guys and teach the widow and her son to stand on their own two feet and how to cook ramen just right. There is also the analysis, even the over analysis, of all things noodle and how the Japanese pride themselves in being more civilized with the noodle. But it is also the story of our movie watchers, the fated lovers (spoiler alert) who are at their last movie together. Unluckily Itami committed suicide so there are only a limited number of his movies and this is probably the best for westerners to be introduced to them. Once you watch this movie you will probably want to check his others like "A Taxing Woman" or "The Funeral". He definitely had a sense of humor and was intelligent.

Juzo Itami's masterful film about life and food takes us on an innocent romp through a variety of vignettes which manage between them to describe a remarkably wide and insightful sampling of human behaviour.Throwing a glance at the great Akira Kurosawa, and possibly a wry smile to William A. Wellman, Itami celebrates the great Western and Gangster genres by threading two plots through his irreverent patchwork of a film, but he does so as a way of creating reference points to keep the viewer from becoming confused and bewildered by what otherwise would be a series of shorts. Essentially Tampopo is a compilation of 5-10 minute shorts joined together by two stories of approximately 30 and 40 minutes. Yet this should deter nobody; there is something for everybody in Tampopo since we all love food and drama.Both satire and irony abound in the rich soup of Tampopo, yet the film still carries many important messages, several of which suggest desirable things we can do with food in settings as diverse as the bedroom, a posh restaurant, the kitchen, and of course that staple of Japanese culinary life: the noodle shop.Within this rich pastiche reside many original gems, including an explanation of the zen art of noodle eating, a sensually charged encounter with an oyster diver, and probably the most mouth-watering method of cooking eggs most viewers are likely to see. Note, the chef who prepares the eggs plays a vagabond off the streets, yet try to emulate his egg-cooking feat and my bet is it will take an experienced cook several attempts to get it right!Fun, astute, entertaining and informative, Tampopo achieves a type of magic that happens all too rarely in the cinema: the audience walks out all smiles, abuzz with comments and stories, and feeling both energized and optimistic, if for no other reason than they now have a clear idea of what they'd like for dinner!

... and pairs nicely with  Ramen Girl .It's a cute story about a hard-working woman desperate to succeed in a business with cut-throat competition. A mysterious stranger appears on the scene. With no obvious reason for knowing so much, he teaches her the business, in every detail, calling on other improbable experts at points. The drill-sergeant approach has its comical moments. Of course, she's victorious in the end and the mysterious stranger [figuratively] rides off into the sunset.The main story is intercut with snippets of side plots, including one involving a Yakuza and his lady of the moment. Removing that might have been an improvement. Despite that distraction, it remains a flick I enjoy immensely.-- wiredweird

Buen empaque viene con un poster en el interior

When I first watched this movie during my university years, I loved it. It was so Monty Pythonie. Outrageous, with a tongue in cheek commentary on food and the various ways it is relished. The portions where Tampopo is being drilled like a martial artist/athlete is so funny. The various stories interweaving with each other was to me right out of a Monty Python style-book. While it is not to be taken too seriously, there are little gems that can be gleaned to take note of, or for your next culinary experience. Glad I bought it. As one of the reviewers mentioned, though, it is not a movie for the family. Or you could just skip those portions with your remote.

Comédie western sur la nourriture prenant place au Japon dans les années 80. Le petites scénettes sur la mort, le sexe, la famille sont très touchantes ou marrantes

ore times without getting bored. When I went to college a lecturer screened clips of it to emphasise the importance of observation as a market research tool - a lesson that has stuck with me to this day. Decades later I get Tampopo on Blu-Ray via Criterion Collection re-issue.The print is way richer and better than what I saw a few times in Liverpool and it still holds my interest.Ramen western?Before we get into the film I want dispel the idea of the ramen western. Every magazine review you see of Tampopo will use the term 'ramen western' which was apparently coined by publicists during its international release. It's a lazy phrase in the case of Tampopo for a number of reasons.Yes, one of the protagonists has some clothing that might evoke the image of a cowboy, but that's like writing the entire film from a few curated still images. The clothing is more about evoking the rugged individuality of a truck driver, in a largely conformist society. Their neckerchief is more about lorry cabs having no air conditioning at the time.The best spaghetti westerns like A Fist Full of Dollars actually were adaptions of Japanese films. In the case of A Fist Full of Dollars, it's the retelling in western setting of the Akira Kurosawa film Yojimbo. So the Ramen Western reference is basically saying 'it's a Japanese interpretation set around a neighbourhood restaurant of an Italian plagarisation of a Japanese samurai film classic'.The reality is that Tampopo is more complex than the simplistic ramen western label would have you believe.Juzo ItamiDirector Juzo Itami was an auteur: actor, script writer and director. Tampopo was his second feature film and he would eventually direct eight more. Itami's later films courted controversy with him being attacked by Yakuza members. His eventual suicide is widely believed to have been staged by members of the yakuza to prevent a film that discussed the gang's links with a buddhist movement.Back to TampopoTampopo revolves around food as art and food is also the MacGuffin for the film. In the main story, a widow is struggling to manage her ramen shop following the death of her husband the cook and shop owner.A jobbing truck driver and drivers mate stop to eat and get sucked into a quest. The widow who is named Tampopo (Japanese for Dandelion), the truck driver and driver's mate to make great ramen and rejuvenate the fortunes of the shop.So if Tampopo isn't a ramen western, what is it?The simple answer would be an action comedy revolving around a ramen shop and the art of cooking. But there is so much more in the film.There is a second story about 'the man in white' which has heavy overtones of French new wave cinema and features a basket of European food fit for a decadent picnic. The fourth wall is broken and one of the characters speaks directly to the audience, adding an additional layer of complexity. We are both audience and (minor) character. Over new wave vignettes in the film include:Salarymen having a meal at a French restaurant A women's etiquette class on how to eat spaghetti silently in the European mannerSupermarket staff stopping an older woman with a compulsion to squeeze foodA con man uses an elaborate meal to lure a mark into an scamA woman breast feeds her infantTorakku YarōThere are references due to the plot structure to the idea of the ronin - the unattached samurai helping out common people in the plot structure. But just as important the film references Japanese culture around that time. There is a clear parallel between Tampopo and a series of trucking related comedy films that were made from 1974 - 1979. Torakku Yarō which roughly translates as Truck Guys or Truck Rascals. It is a series of ten films made over a four year period to cater for the popularity of the genre.The plots were standardised.Truck driver falls in love with woman he meets on the road.Truck driver through his actions actually helps her fall in love with another man.Truck driver ends up going on a quest to help reunite the star-crossed lovers under some sort of time restriction.In this case cooking ramen is substituted for the 'other man'. The connections don't stop at the plot structure, one of the main characters Pisken is played by Japanese Italian actor Rikiya Yasuoka - who appeared in the first instalment of the Torakku Yarō series.Torakku Yarō itself was based on an earlier series of comedies called Otoko wa Tsurai yo: translated as It's tough being a man. 48 films were made in this series from 1969 to 1995 based around the same formula.Tora-san falls in love with a womanTora-san argues with his extended familyTora-san's love of the woman is not reciprocated and he leaves heart-brokenWhile the humour may not fully come out from Tompopo, it's a visual tour-de-force with great acting and a distinctive vision behind the film. I look forward to rewatching it again in the future.

Enligt recensioner skulle det finnas japanskt språk och engelsk subtitles. Det finns endast japansk språk och fransk subtitles. Tyvärr var det lögn!