Featured image for “Tampopo”
Shown: December 10, 2023 at 6pm

Director : Jūzō Itami

Country : Japan

Release Date : 1985

Duration : 114 mins

Language : Japanese

Subtitles : Yes

An entertaining, genre-bending adventure of a band of misfits who help a noodle-shop owner in her quest for the perfect recipe to make ramen (noodles). Many elements of the film closely and knowingly parallel classic Westerns – a ‘spaghetti Eastern’ no less with nods to Clint Eastwood and Luis Buñuel along the way. A mysterious stranger rides into town and saves the pretty widow from being harassed by bad men. Interspersed with the erotic exploits of a gastronome gangster, a crazy lady who squeezes all the fruit in a shop and the glimpses of food culture both high and low, the sweet, sexy and surreal Tampopo (Dandelion) is a lavishly inclusive paean to the sensual joys of nourishment and one of the most mouthwatering examples of food on film ever made.

A thriving, celebratory and delightful classic that will leave you ravished by the end, for ramen, Asian cuisine or really, any form of sustenance.”  (Tina Hassannia – National Post)


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