I have heard of this movie for years and after seeing the IMDB rating, gave it a watch last night. The cooking scenes were very good but the rest of the movie, please forgive me, was just plain silly...I mean Three Stooges silly. Please tell me what I missed that others seem to appreciate so.
shareIt was meant to be silly. It's a comedy/parody film, a lighthearted movie poking fun at the role of food in Japanese culture and life in general while at the same time parodying a range of genres including Spaghetti Westerns, samurai films, gangster movies and so on.
The people, and the people alone, are the motive force in the making of history.
-Mao Zedong
I have to admit that I, too, enjoy watching Tampopo's journey to becoming a good noodle chef more than the other side stories, but I appreciate what director Itami Juzo was going for. There are fun moments like the beginning of the movie where an old man describes how to appreciate a bowl of ramen, the businessmen in the French restaurant, the hobo cooking up an omurice for Tampopo's son, Tampopo saving a choking man by using a vacuum cleaner's suction tube, and Tampopo's final noodle exam treated with all the seriousness of the westerns the movie is spoofing. Watching this movie definitely makes you hungry for ramen!
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