Tampopo (1985)

"You helped me find my ladder"

From birth to death, we all have the need for food in common. Tampopo put a weird twist on the food genre by combining it with a Western, with the emphasis on weird. The film’s main course was the search for the perfect bowl of ramen. The side dishes ran the gamut from heartwarming to sexual food fetishes. When the character in the opening scene breaks the fourth wall, hold onto your popcorn because you are in for a wild ride.

On a dark and stormy night, two truck drivers ride into town looking for a place to eat. Goro wears a cowboy hat and his trusty young sidekick loves ramen so they stop at small shop. Tampopo is a widow with no experience cooking ramen and it showed. Goro and Gun give her advice on her ramen and before long are helping her to improve. Team Ramen begins to expand to include a homeless ob/gyn, a chauffeur, and a drunken contractor. And this is the most normal story in the film.

Just when you think it couldn’t get any weirder, director Itami Juzo says, “Hold my Heineken.” Like tag team wrestling, a passerby will be tagged in and their story of food begins. Professional and international dinner etiquette, con artists, fetishes, first times, and last times all pop in and out with circle wipes. Tampopo delves into the connections we have with food and dining. How much do we savor and pay attention to what we eat? How memories and food are tied together in a family. There were some scenes with the 18+ food fetish couple that I would rather not have seen but for the most part the vignettes were PG, kooky, and entertaining. When the last breaths of a character were for a wild boar intestines recipe you know the director is hard core about food. While I found myself invested in one of the romances, the true love of the film was for food.

Tampopo will not be for everyone, nor will all the stories in it. I enjoyed Team Ramen as they explored the world of ramen, experimenting, failing, improving, and building a comradery. Some of the vignettes were more humorous than others, but overall, I found it quirky and entertaining. As someone who grew up watching westerns with my dad, I fully expected one character to shout out, “Come back Shane!” at the end of the film. If you are in the mood for something different, grab a snack, and settle in for a film dedicated to food in the many ways we celebrate it.

7 February 2024

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Watch this for my MDL 2024 challenge. Quite interesting, it just has a very big but…

Story about a widow named Tampopo. Her husband died not long before, and she struggles to maintain the ramen restaurant left by her late husband. One day, a truck driver, Goro, comes to the restaurant & sees Tampopo being harassed by her customer. Can’t just stand by seeing that, Goro decided to help Tampopo, but just to be defeated. But from that accident, the friendship between Goro & Tampopo started.

Tampopo who struggles about the restaurant finally has the courage to ask Goro for help. Goro, with the help of some people, helps Tampopo gather the perfect recipe for ramen… And later even to renew the shop for Tampopo...

That's pretty much the story without giving any spoilers. Tampopo is a really clever woman, she managed to trick a few people / chefs to give her the recipe without them realizing it. It was so fun to see her gather the recipe.

This is actually really quite an interesting old movie, even though I watch it today time, I don't feel it's too old. But unfortunately, the scene in the movie mixed with the scene unrelated to the story. I don’t know it just the style at that time or what, but it really affected me who watch it today.

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