MovieChat Forums > The Ramen Girl (2008) Discussion > This movie is much better than that

This movie is much better than that


4.7/10? I guess people came to watch romantic comedy and got disappointed.

This movie is good. It has a soul. It's like a non-violent Karate Kid with a girl instead of a boy and cooking instead of karate. It could be a good anime series too.

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i agree, i was surprised to see such a low rating.

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I'll never trust imdb user rating anymore, that's what I decided after finishing watching this movie. 5/10 ? That's ridiculous or those people must have a problem with the filmmakers. Because fairly, this movie deserves a 7/10 or above, and even 7/10 is still a strict point because it has everything you need of a romance movie, it's hilarious, romantic, so beautiful, meaningful and plus so much more...Seriously, there can't be a thing in this movie to not like it.
This must be the best movie I've watched this year. If u trust the rating here, it's your loss.

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True. It's either faulty marketing or people stereotype this as something else and then ofc, it does not meet their expectations for a certain genre.

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Well, I disagree... this was a movie full of annoyances, such as Brittany Murphy bursting into whiney tears every five minutes and resolutely refusing to learn enough Japanese to get by while insisting she could become a master ramen chef.
That said, it still entertained just enough to hold the viewer's interest and there just aren't that many movies about Japan. Tampopo and Lost in Translation come to mind but that's because there are so few.
There was a great movie starring Tom Selleck in which he played a baseball player playing the game in Japan. It was much better than Ramen Girl but then, I would definitely miss the noodles!
The filmmakers tried to do something very difficult and on a low budget. So hats off to them for trying.

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I liked it and I agree the rating is lower than it should be.....but no matter, I dont rely on imdb ratings for a while now.


The only thing that bugged me was Brittanys fading-annoying voice only she can do, but gets kind of cute along the way.

Some didnt like the fact she didnt learn enough Japanese but I felt if she did understand everything the 'sensei' said, we would be robbed for a couple of great *beep* laughs, right? I mean, the guy is just too hilarious when he gets all nervous and pissed off, I also think I liked these parts of the movie the best :-).

I'd give it a 7 out of 10.

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I really disagree on the part that she _refused_ to learn it. It's no epic story that spans several years. She just wasn't long enough around to really learn it. In the beginning she doesn't speak one word, but understands and speaks some in the end. She just doesn't learn that fast. Which doesn't surprise me at all. Japanese isn't that easy to "pick up". She's not taking lessons or something like that. Her only help was a dictionary...

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I found the whole movie poorly produced and realized. As far as the excuse of Budget restraints, they could have fixed that by not filming in Japan. There was really no great scene in the movie that required them to film it in Japan. So they could have saved money there. They did land decent to excellent Japanese supporting cast members, and Brittany Murphy far from sucks as an actress, but still there was just too much bad directing for this film to have a chance. Poor character development, needless characters, and to some extent the director or writer didn't do their homework and study Japan before they started rolling. That said they didn't do play to the stereotypes too much.

I agree, that Tom selleck film you mentioned, Mr. Baseball was better. Someone did a little homework about Japan and they didn't play the bad asian stereotypes that films of the early nineties did. T

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I'm with you. Everything mediocre: directing, script, acting.

~~~~~~~
Think cynical thoughts.

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7/10? No way.. this was a cute movie but it was pretty crappy for the most part. the acting was bad and it was embarrassingly predictable.
5/10 for me. 5.5 if i had the choice.

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Yeah, this movie is at least a 7!

"Get busy living, or get busy dying."

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I was very pleasantly surprised by this movie, not expecting much but seemed to get really drawn into it, the funny moments were just that funny as hell and the emotional scenes in which Brittanys character is contemplating where her life is going were very touching. overall great movie, a rarity if you ask me.

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This movie had potential to be something good. But there were too many huge flaws:

1) POOR ENDING - we watched the movie just to see that ending?

2) B. Murphy's character could get annoying at times, she seemed way too stubborn with all the crying etc.

3) The japanese guy that was her lover. Bad actor. Every scene with him was pure corn and cheese.

4) What happened to the red head? They just left her storyline. . . same with the chubby lonely japanese guy.

I've seen over a thousand movies and wanted to see something different, I thought it would be decent from the trailer. I had low expectations and the movie still kinda dissapointed me, I wanted to give it a 4/10. . .but I gave it a 5/10 since it was interesting at certain points.

If my friends ask me if I would recommend this movie to them, I'ld say no.

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I think what puts most people off, icluding me, was Murphy's acting or lack therof. Given an actress with some real talent and charm, this could have been a very good movie but Murphy dragged it down to just average.

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I don't think it was that extreme, but yes - it was it's biggest flaw. On the other hand - someone less extravagant etc., would look very unbelievable in that kind of setting.

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Yeah, the whole time I was watching it, I kept trying to think who could have made the movie work. My first thought was Kate Hudson but she is too big a star to take a role like this I would think. Maybe Zoey Deschanel? I dunno.

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Well it's done anyways.

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Well I guess a few more people have watched this movie and liked it since your original posting because its up to 6.1 now. I gave it a 6/10. Good movie, not great. I nice family type film..esp with the obvious editing of profanity. Was probably going to be an R rating in the USA, but was edited down to a PG 13 with the editing of the half dozen f-words.

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The thing about this movie is that a lot of things are pretty grating if you've been to Japan before, and that it was inevitably doomed to be compared to Tanpopo, which is a great movie.

Whereas, a movie like Lost in Translation manages to resonate with both people who have been to Japan and who haven't. (That is, despite a few silly points--What's with all the strippers? Why do they go over the bridge towards Odaiba to get back to their hotel in Shinjiku?)

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I think the movie needed Brittany Murphy as she brought a fragility to the movie contrasting with sensai;s gruff character and it also gave a starting point for her character to grow and which help her to discover her inner strength be rebuilt/reborn. The sensai was brilliant.

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by neiltzmurphy;

The thing about this movie is that a lot of things are pretty grating if you've been to Japan before, and that it was inevitably doomed to be compared to Tanpopo, which is a great movie.

I have not seen Tampopo (the 1985 Film).

"Whereas, a movie like Lost in Translation manages to resonate with both people who have been to Japan and who haven't. (That is, despite a few silly points--What's with all the strippers?"

Lost in Translation did not resonate with me (my rating 5/10).
I thought that The Ramen Girl (my rating 8/10) was much better than LIT.

- LIT; For me I could not believe much of the relationship between the main characters played by Johansson and Murray in LIT.
Older, unattached boozy guy who is traveling meets a beauiful woman who is on her own in a foreign country and he doesn't try to get sexually involved with her?
Besides that unrealistic premise (imo) much of the story in LIT felt padded, as if Sophia didn't have much to say. (In an interview she admittted that the problem with the script was that there was not enough of it and that she tried to fix that, unsuccessfully imo.)

- By contrast with The Ramen Girl, the close relationships (boyfriend or potential boyfriend) for Brittney's character felt like they could happen.
- The motivation for Brittney's character, to learn how to cook a certain type of cuisine, also felt believeable. (See Julia and Me for examples of that based on true stories.)
- The atmosphere of The Ramen Girl (the lighting at night and the photography in tight quarters) was impressive.
And I thought that Murphy did and good job as Abby's Sensei, her teacher/nemesis, played well by Toshiyuki Nishida.
I also enjoyed much of the humor in The Ramen Girt while much of LIT seemed flat for my personal taste.

BB ;-)

it's just in my opinion - imo -

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this movie was terrible. Bad script, bad acting, bad cinematography, bad direction. I'm glad to hear you say that you didn't like Lost in Translation, if you think Lost in Translation is bad and the Ramen Girl is good, that makes perfect sense.

If you want a movie about feeling alienated in Japan, Lost in Translation is a good choice.

If you want a movie about making ramen, Tampopo would be my recommendation.

If you want a movie that is painful to watch and makes you wish you could get back the time you wasted watching it, can't go wrong with The Ramen Girl.

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