Tampopo (1985) on Netflix
Gorō and Gun, truck drivers, stop at Lai Lai, the struggling ramen shop of the widowed Tampopo. A customer demands she sell the place. She asks Gorō to be her teacher.
- Netflix4.5/5
- IMDb7.9/1027,442 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes100%
Featurette
Plot summary
Gorō and Gun pull their truck in for a meal at Lai Lai, a roadside ramen shop run by Tampopo, a widow with a young son, Tabo. Gorō breaks up a beating the boy is taking from schoolmates, then quiets Pisuken, a customer who keeps pressing Tampopo to give up the shop. Pisuken and his men knock him out, and he wakes the next morning in her house. She cooks breakfast for the two men and asks what they think of her ramen; they call it sincere but without character. She asks Gorō to take her on as his pupil, and the two set about working toward a proper bowl of noodle soup, measuring her shop against those of her rivals.
Cast
- Mario Abeas Ramen stand owner
- Toshimune Katoas Office junior
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Tampopo (1985)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- With no major studio backing, Juzo Itami cast many non-professional local residents in Tampopo and relied on low-tech equipment and jury-rigged solutions to problems on set.
- The omurice scene was shot in the kitchen of the Nihonbashi restaurant Taimeiken, using chef-owner Masaaki Modegi's unique inside-out omelette style; Modegi also hand-modelled the cooking close-ups. That omelette style is now a popular way of serving omurice in Asia, partly thanks to the film.
- Chef and food writer Alice Waters has made Tampopo required viewing for her kitchen staff, and her protégés Jerry Jaksich, Sam White and Rayneil De Guzman made pilgrimages to Japan and opened their own ramen shop in 2013.
- Tampopo was shot mostly in Shibaura, Tokyo, then an industrial working-class neighbourhood on reclaimed land off the Inner Circular Route, much of it at real locations in natural light, in the cinéma vérité style of cinematographer Masaki Tamura. The area's working-class charm and the film's locations disappeared in the development boom that followed.
- Food stylist Seiko Ogawa was hired to make bowl after perfect bowl of ramen for Tampopo, to coach star Nobuko Miyamoto on ramen, and to cater for the crew.
- Critics point to Tampopo as the originator of "food porn", and its pairing of food and sexuality turned up in later films such as Like Water for Chocolate (1992), Chocolat (2000) and The Taste of Things (2024).
