East Side Sushi (2014) on Netflix
Juana, a single mother in East Oakland, works her father's fruit cart and cooks in taquerias. After a robbery at the cart, she takes a job at the Japanese restaurant Osaka.
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- Netflix4.2/5
- IMDb7.1/105,133 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes95%
Trailer
Plot summary
In East Oakland, California, Juana is a single Mexican-American mother raising her young daughter with her widowed father. She moves through a string of food jobs, from her father's fruit cart to Mexican taquerias, and her knife work is quick and exact. After being robbed while tending the cart, she is hired at the Japanese restaurant Osaka and begins as a kitchen helper. Her interest in sushi grows there, and in her own time she works through trial and error on her own sushi dishes. She also has her eye on a contest called Champions of Sushi and its first prize of $20,000.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about East Side Sushi (2014)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Anthony Lucero began writing a screenplay about a male dishwasher, Juan, who wanted to be a French chef, but after eight months of research he realized he had never seen a woman sushi chef. He threw out his 30-page script and turned Juan into Juana, making sexism and national origin themes.
- To save money, Anthony Lucero first considered having his cast learn sushi making from YouTube videos or local chefs, but instead persuaded Andy Matsuda of the Torrance-based Sushi Chef Institute to train them free of charge. The actors trained for two weeks.
- Director Anthony Lucero first thought Diana Elizabeth Torres might have been too young for the lead, but her acting skills won her the part. She gained about 15 pounds for the role.
