Tampopo ( Dandelion )

Tampopo is an off beat Japanese movie from the 1908s. It's all about food, and running through it is the story of a Ramen bar owner - Tampopo of the title - and her quest to become the best Ramen chef on the block. Spoiler alert - with the help of a truck driver who happens to pass by one rainy night for a bowl of Ramen, she succeeds. That's after an odyssey of encounters with rival Ramen chefs and their secret recipes, and which entails lovingly filmed expositions of the various arts of Ramen. Along the way there are a score of myriad diversions into often surreal food based cameo scenes, often beginning with the camera wandering off from the main characters to follow some other group of characters who just happen to be passing.So the director tells us, in the 90 minute making of documentary that comes with main movie - a very informative scene-by-scene account of the intellectual and practical processes that underlie his film. And on top of that, there are cast interviews.The film itself is here reproduced at excellent quality resolution - worthy of this very entertaining, intelligent and playful Japanese classic.

Juzo Itami's film is a sweet, funny, romantic sometimes bizarre but always delectable ode to the multi-layered and multi-flavored relationship between man (or woman) and food.The film's title (which means Dandelion) comes from the name of the protagonist, a middle-aged widow with a bullied kid, struggling to run the Ramen restaurant left by her husband. When cowboy trucker Goro (and his buddy Gun) enter her life after having saved the kid from a beating and fended off her coercive suitor, she finds in their honest criticism of her cooking a chance to improve her skill and make a better life for herself. Goro (and a host of other people, including a band of gourmet hobos) come together to aid Tampopo in honing her craft and and push her to achieve her own holy grail of Ramen.Intersecting this main artery are several vignettes with other characters, all of which explore the almost spiritual importance of food in our lives: In a delicious jab at the culture of subservience and lack of individuality, a junior executive embarrasses his protocol-slave bosses by ordering a stand-out lavishly flavorful meal at a company lunch after all of them have opted for identical bland fare. Another episode shows a sick woman cooking a final family dinner before she drops dead. In some we see people going to desperate, even life-threatening extents to satisfy their food indulgences. Weirdness comes in the thread where a gangster and his moll indulge in kinky food-meets-sex games, including repeatedly passing a raw egg yolk between their lips till it breaks.With this wonderful smorgasbord, Itami, himself a gourmet, expresses his philosophy of food with an almost reverent air. The technical aspects of the film, its visuals and sounds, are dedicated to the service of this meditation. This was one of the early films to have a dedicated food stylist. Assuming you're not a vegan/vegetarian that gets offended by the very sight of animal food (and in one scene a young turtle is killed on camera), I dare you to watch it on an empty stomach without drooling. Like warm soup on a rainy day the film is very cheering, and the plot thread of the gangster with its kinky sex and weird metaphors for virginity is about the only thing that keeps it from being recommended as family fare.Coming off a fresh 4K restoration, the film looks and sounds mouth-watering on Criterion's blu-ray (I got the region B-locked UK release). Apart from the main feature, there's a vintage 90 min making of, hosted by director Itami himself. There are also new interviews with the lead actress (his wife), the food stylist and featurettes about the legacy of the film (including one that talks to a bunch of Ramen noodle restauranters). The cover unfolds as a full-size poster on the back of which is a single decent though not very essential essay.

Although a huge fan of Japanese cinema, I hadn't yet seen this wonderfully energetic movie about a Ramen restaurant and Japanese food culture. It's aged a little in regard to production values but great characters and tons of humour keep it feeling as fresh as a plate of sushi.

I want to say one thing first: This is not a review of the film, which is simply excellent. If you've never seen the film, just go and get it. This is a review of the Criterion Blu-ray version released in April 2017.This is a superb transfer. I've seen this film many times, but never in this quality. Probably this is the best way we'll ever see the film.The film is complete: it has all the scenes - the crayfish, the cream. There seem to be a few seconds here and there of different film stock -- which is not a criticism, it looks as if they have made a most complete edition. The subtitles are as far as my moderate Japanese goes pretty good. I don't have a particularly great audio setup at home but it sounded clear all the way through.There are a few extras on the blu-ray disk, which I didn't watch all the way through yet.But in summary, buy buy buy.

This is a quirky movie - in Japanese with subtitles - with sub plots running along in the story line. Tampopo is a girl in a man's noodle world who is trying to outdo the competition with the help of a few "friends". Noodle shops are an art form in Japan and the right noodles, texture, soup etc are all required to keep the customers coming back. Despite her initial lack of success, things improve of course building up to the finale. There is a new Japanese restaurant chain in Singapore called "Tampopo", but none of the staff have ever heard of the movie - though I imagine the owner has; probably a fan of the movie like me. The food is good too, especially the Black Pig shabu ramen at Liang Court (River Valley Road). If you live in Sing, watch the movie then try to stop yourself visiting the restaurant immediately afterwards!