Movies - Tampopo

	Movies - Tampopo

Tampopo (タンポポ or 蒲公英 which translate to "dandelion") is a 1985 Japanese comedy film by director Juzo Itami, starring Tsutomu Yamazaki, Nobuko Miyamoto and Ken Watanabe. The publicity for the film calls it "the first Noodle Western," a play on the term Spaghetti Western (Western films made by Italian production studios).

Plot summary

Tampopo begins when a pair of truck drivers, an experienced one named Goro and a young one named Gun (played by Tsutomu Yamazaki and Ken Watanabe respectively), happen onto a decrepit roadside fast food stop selling ramen noodles. The business is not doing too well, and after getting involved in a fight, the heroes decide to help the young owner, Tampopo ("Dandelion", played by Nobuko Miyamoto), turn her establishment into a paragon of the "art of noodle soup making".

The main narrative is interspersed with stories involving consumables (see food porn) on several levels. The primary B story involves a white-suited yakuza gangster (Koji Yakusho) and his mistress (Fukumi Kuroda) who, among other things, check into a hotel and do PG-13 things with prawns that one would just have to see. Other side plots include an office intern who shows up his senior colleagues by ordering well at a French restaurant, a housewife who rises from her deathbed to cook one last meal for her family, and a women's etiquette class teaching how to eat spaghetti in the gaijin way.

The camerawork and cinematic techniques were sophisticated for the time. The several strands of the story transition one to another on the fly, and some of the characters address the audience directly or ham it up deliberately.

The main storyline has been compared by some to that of the Western movie Shane, and also to the movie Seven Samurai and the Western based on it, The Magnificent Seven
.

The film was popular in Japan and on the North American art house circuit in the late 1980s where it was appreciated for its quirky approach. While many ramen restaurants in Japan claim to be the one that motivated the shop in the story, no one has been able to figure out which, if any, is correct.

The film is often cited being as a good reference for learning about Japanese culture, particularly the role and importance of food in Japanese society. The film also displays the almost fanatic following that well-prepared ramen has in Japan.

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Movies - Tampopo

Plot summary

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