Synopsis
In this humorous paean to the joys of food, a pair of truck drivers happen onto a decrepit roadside shop selling ramen noodles. The widowed owner, Tampopo, begs them to help her turn her establishment into a paragon of the "art of noodle-soup making". Interspersed are satirical vignettes about the importance of food to different aspects of human life.
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Cast
- Tsutomu YamazakiGoro
- Nobuko MiyamotoTampopo
- Ken WatanabeGun
- Koji YakushoMan in White Suit
- Rikiya YasuokaPisken
- Kinzō SakuraShohei
- Hyōe EnokiPisken's Henchman
- Gō AwazuPisken's Henchman
- Mario AbeRestaurant Owner
- Izumi HaraOld Woman Pressing Camembert Cheese
Recommendations
- 100
Los Angeles Times
It has the irresistible freshness of a recipe that many have tried to copy and none have matched: a barbed, sprawling, scintillating vision of a society happily in thrall to its taste buds. - 100
Wall Street Journal
Lacking space for a proper review, let me say first that Tampopo is right up there with “Ratatouille” and “Big Night” when it comes to peerless movies about food. - 100
Chicago Sun-Times
Tampopo is one of those utterly original movies that seems to exist in no known category. Like the French comedies of Jacques Tati, it's a bemused meditation on human nature in which one humorous situation flows into another offhandedly, as if life were a series of smiles. - 91
IndieWire
Like all of the best comfort food, Tampopo tastes familiar but not derivative, something more than the sum of its ingredients. If Tampopo resonates with you in ways you might not expect or be able to name, it’s because Itami also engenders the same respect for everything that goes into the making of a movie. - 90
Village Voice
Everyone needs nourishment, and Itami found humor and poignancy in how it’s provided and received. - 90
Washington Post
Tampopo is perhaps the funniest movie about the connection between food and sex ever made. But, as you're watching it, the movie's base broadens, and the parallels between the noodle-maker's art and the filmmaker's become richer, sweeter. - 75
Chicago Reader
The often unorthodox inventiveness of Tampopo registers like the dividend of a filmmaker who has found his ideal subject. - 75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
Like newfangled Western revisions of ramen itself – sprinkled with corn niblets and topped with melty hillocks of shredded Swiss cheese – Tampopo is an exercise in hybridity.
