Movie Review: Tampopo (1985) directed by Juzo Itami
Truck drivers Goro (Tsutomu Yamazaki) and Gun (Ken Watanabe) get hungry on a long haul, and stop at Ramen Lai-Lai, a failing restaurant. To be honest, the food’s not all that good, but Goro gets into a fight with local drunk Pis-Ken (Rikiya Yasuoka), who’s being rude to the proprietor. Pis-Ken has several helpers, and Goro wakes up the next morning being tended by the owner of Lai-Lai, a widow named Tampopo (Nobuko Miyamoto). She inherited the shop from her late husband, but was not involved in running it before, so has no real clue how to make ramen. Being outwardly gruff but a big softie inside, Goro decides to help her turn the place around.
Back in 1985 in most of the United States, ramen was dried noodles in bricks or cups consumed primarily by college students and the desperately poor. The idea that it was an actual main dish that could be made well was a revelation to me. And there was nothing like this movie on the market at the time in America or Japan. (Though it is clearly descended both from American Westerns and the Japanese “Truck Yarou” films about two truckers who wind up involved with people’s lives.)
While the main plot is Tampopo learning basic and advanced techniques for making good ramen, and gaining the confidence to take charge of the restaurant business, there’s a subplot about a gangster in a white suit (Koji Yakusho) and his mistress (Fukumi Kuroda) enjoying food together before his inevitable violent death. There’s also several mini-stories, like the junior business executive who completely fails to read the room when he makes a better French cuisine order than his superiors, and the mother who rises from her deathbed to cook one last meal for the family.
This is a comedy, but there are many heartfelt moments, such as the homeless foodies giving a musical farewell to their “sensei.” This rewatch so many years later, with my life experiences, caused me to tear up more than once.
Goro is the sort of fellow who wears his cowboy hat even in the bathtub; he’s very much the Western drifter. He tried settling down once, but couldn’t make it work, and his wife took the kids with her. He and Tampopo are clearly attracted to each other, and it’s a bit sad that he must ride off when his work is done.
But the underlying theme of it all is that food is good. The final image is of an infant suckling at its mother’s breast, the simplest human expression of providing food.
Content note: fist fights, bullying, female nudity, kinky sex. Animals are killed for food. A dentist scene may be uncomfortable for some viewers.
This is seriously one of the all-time great movies, and I highly recommend it. Be sure to have snacks on hand if you can’t get the good ramen.
