Product Details

• Actors: Hector Elizondo, Jacqueline Obradors, Tamara Mello, Judy Herrera, Nikolai Kinski
• Directors: María Ripoll
• Writers: Ang Lee, Hui-Ling Wang, James Schamus, Ramón Menéndez, Tom Musca
• Producers: John Bard Manulis
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, NTSC
• Language: English, Spanish
• Rated: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Sony Pictures
• VHS Release Date: June 4, 2002
• Run Time: 102 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (97 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B00005TPMU
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #160,692 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

The tantalizing genre of food films--stretching from Babette's Feast to Big Night and beyond--has a delicious new addition, Tortilla Soup. The food-preparation scenes will make your mouth water. Fortunately, the rest of the movie holds up as well. Hector Elizondo plays Martin, a widowed chef who is losing both his sense of taste and control over his three daughters: Leticia (the always superb Elizabeth Peña), a religious schoolteacher; Carmen (Jacqueline Obradors), a successful but unhappy businesswoman still carrying on an affair with her ex-boyfriend; and Maribel (Tamara Mello), a rebellious teen falling in love with a young Brazilian. When a pushy, nosy, but very sexy widow named Hortensia (Raquel Welch) comes along, the troublesome subcurrents in the family start to surface. Elizondo's understated gravitas anchors the story, while the three sisters have sex, eat amazing-looking food, and break plates in the kitchen. --Bret Fetzer

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

39 of 41 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Contemporary "Like Water for Chocolate", August 17, 2001

By 

selina solovyova (Denver CO) - See all my reviews

Finally! "Tortilla Soup" is such an uplifting and lighthearted portrayal of contemporary Mexican-American life. Although it uses alot of cliche and works so hard to break negative stereotypes, this Mexican remake of another Ang Lee script is an original in its remedy to mainstream beliefs about Mexican-American culture. As in "Like Water for Chocolate" this movie puts cliche to good use by weaving America's popular, but narrow, idea that Latin food and romance are the greatest contributions to American culture. But we also get a fresh taste of the earthy Latin comedy that we so rarely see on the silver screen. Like Paul Rodriguez' comment about food "toppings". The cast gives great performances and Hector Elisondo is brilliant as the backbone of the family and the film. The actors in this film portray the abilities of Hollywood's new faces with a fresh sense of depth and Raquel Welch has reached a point in her career where she can really laugh at herself, and that's funny. "Tortilla Soup" brilliantly and sensually displays the artful process of gourmet Mexican and how food as culture, as art, as tradition, can bring people together.

24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Way to a Man's Heart is through.............., August 31, 2001

By 

MICHAEL ACUNA (Southern California United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

The director, Maria Ripoll and the screenwriter, Vera Blasi had an uphill battle to say the least when they decided to adapt the incomparable Ang Lee's "Eat Drink Man Woman" to the screen with their "Tortilla Soup." Martin Naranjo (Hector Elizondo) is a master chef, though semi-retired from the restaurant he created, and living with three daughters: Leticia (Elizabeth Pena), the oldest and a high school chemistry teacher, Carmen (Jacqueline Obrados), an MBA and very successful in business and Maribel, in high school and searching for the "meaning of life" as all teenagers should be doing. This film is very much like "Soul Food" in that most of the action revolves around the dinner table with luscious-looking food designed and prepared by the "Hot Tamales" of Food TV fame. And like Ang Lee's film all the daughters and their father are searching for love, happiness and contentment.Aren't we all? There is no violence except for a few dishes that get broken. In fact nothing much happens except we are made privy to several interesting people and watch as they conduct their lives in a rich, deep and fulfilling manner. Besides Elizondo who always does a great job, the standout performance has to be Jacqueline Obrados as Carmen. Keep your eyes open in the future as I'm sure we are going to see great things from her. An interesting note: Nikolai Kinski, grandson of the famous Klaus and son of the also famous Nastassia plays Maribel's boyfriend, Andy. That's three generations of Kinski's now in the movies and Nikolai makes a good impression in a basic no frills role. Food means love, sharing and camaraderie in "Tortilla Soup," (Mexican characters) as it did in "Soul Food"(African-American characters) and "Eat Drink Man Woman" (Taiwanese characters). Maybe the United Nations should make note of this. You think?

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars As irresistible as margaritas, guacamole, y salsa, December 17, 2003

By 

Peggy Vincent "author and reader" (Oakland, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Tortilla Soup [VHS] (VHS Tape)

A multigenerational tale of a widowed Latino father trying to hold his family of 3 fractious daughters together with the bond of carefully prepared meals. The food preparation scenes will keep you spellbound and can be appreciated on many levels: cooking lesson (really!), act of love, devotion, offering of sacrifice, parental love from a man who has a hard time saying I Love You. His daughters, a repressed Catholic, a liberated high schooler, and a 'modern woman,' just won't conform to his standards of proper Latinas. Then Raquel Welch, a nosy, in-your-face widow comes on the scene, and the fireworks begin.
But there's the food. Always the food, beginning, middle, and end.
Don't miss it.