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Tampopo

DVD

Ken Watanabe (Actor), Koji Yakusho (Actor), Juzu Itami (Director)

79 customer reviews

DVD
from $21.51

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(May 22, 2005)

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Tampopo

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Editorial Reviews

Billed as the "first Japanese noodle western," this comedy offers a satirical view of the relationship between food and sex, one of the director's favorite topics. Watch as a widow running a Tokyo restaurant and a cowboy hat-wearing truck driver try to make the perfect bowl of ramen. Highly acclaimed film from director Itami.

Special Features

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Product Details

Actors: Ken Watanabe, Koji Yakusho, Nobuko Miyamoto
Directors: Juzu Itami
Format: Anamorphic, Color, Full length, Import, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
Number of discs: 1
Studio: Itami Productions
DVD Release Date: May 22, 2005
Run Time: 114 minutes
Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (79 customer reviews)
ASIN: B000GG4RMU
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #86,554 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
- #12002 in Movies & TV > DVD > Comedy
Learn more about "Tampopo" on IMDb

Customer Reviews

4.7 out of 5 stars

5 star		84%
4 star		11%
3 star		0%
2 star		0%
1 star		5%

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Top Customer Reviews

If you love food and Alton Brown...

ByC. Matsusakaon August 13, 2006

Format: DVDVerified Purchase

...you will love this movie for it explores (with hysterical results) why food becomes such an important touchstone in life.

Truck driver Goro and Gun are in search of some good eats and run into a widow who is trying to run a ramen shop. Unfortunately, she's not doing too well so Goro and some unlikely guides offer her some sage advice and help her on her way to becoming a true ramenista. The story is punctuated with some vignettes about the "social aspects" of eating and our behavior with food.

THIS EDITION NOTES: This is a "no-frills" deal with the bear minimum of subtitle options and the movie's original trailer. Although Amazon is listing the zone playability as "unknown" the jacket lists it as ALL ZONES. It played on our ancient Zenith DVD player which can only handle zone 1 DVDs and nothing else. Picture is good, but sound quality is poor. However, its definitely worth the price to see this wonderful movie once again!

0Comment 105 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you?YesNo

Completely concerned with food. Oh, & sex & life too.

ByD. Anthony Patriarcheon August 2, 2007

Format: DVDVerified Purchase

This is on my top ten list of the funniest, most delightful movies of all time. The main plot line is a loving satire of the "adult" western of the fifties - "Shane" in particular - where the hero drifts into town, helps the poor widow get her life together and beat the bad guys, then drifts out again. Tampopo, the heroine, must make the best noodle soup in town to overcome the villainous other noodle houses.

But what makes this movie extraordinary are the vignettes, both within the plot-line and outside it, that mingle food, sex, cultural hangups, life and death in hilarious and sometimes very touching combinations.

The movie succeeds not only because of its marvellous material and fine actors but also through excellent direction and cinematography. For example, the scene toward the end where Tampopo & Goro are eating companionably in a restaurant: notice the camera movement from the food to the people; the positions of the actors conveying clearly the ambiguity of the relationship and their attitudes to each other; how at times Goro actually has his back to the camera; the cut to the symbolic passing train, nicely understated; the whole scene is an example of effective simplicity in movie-making.

This movie is ultimately unclassifiable; it is itself, funny, sad (sometimes both at once), shocking, absorbing; but above all funny. I have never seen another film quite like it, and it stays in the memory like the best of Fellini.

0Comment 28 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you?YesNo

Food, sex and history

ByAlexander Rocheon February 17, 2007

Format: DVDVerified Purchase

This is a Japanese cult film and one which has had serious traction in the West. It contains the roots of the modern Iron Chef series and is a jewel in which is reflected many of the common-or-garden mores that make Japan such a rich and wonderful place. It is a must-see and will not be easily forgotten.

It is a journey to mastery of ramen making and in this, a journey toward mastery itself. Tampopo, a 'noob' noodle chef, enlists the help of expert advisers one-by-one as she assembles the skills necessary to make a compelling ramen noodle soup in the competitive environment of Japanese ramen-ya (ramen noodle shops). Along the way she steals, bribes and cheats with the support of her advisers but, as the goal is honuorable, in good Japanese (and indeed in other nations') style, the ends justify the means.

Apart from yielding the best ramen imaginable, the film is interspersed with a myriad of vignettes - all food related but otherwise unrelated apart from being elements of Japanese idiosyncrasy. These vary from an old lady who sneaks into delis to squeeze the food with a naughty abandon and then to be chased out by the bemused/confused staff to fabulous sequences with the young Iron Chef chairman as a food obsessed gangster exchanging the yolk of an egg in a kiss with his equally food obsessed lover (the roots of the Iron Chef series are clearly present in this film so if you love food ....).

This is a wonderful film. It holds people for years after viewing with each remembering a different element of beauty. It drew me back after 20 years and I had to find it and see it again. Having just done this (and I cooked ramen to go with the viewing!), it lives up the memory!

Alexander Roche

11 comment 9 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you?YesNo

the best introduction to Japanese sensibility ever

ByBrian Watsonon January 31, 2009

Format: DVDVerified Purchase

I first saw this film in college, in a theatre, back in 1987, I think, and in spite of knowing only a little Japanese then, and only a little of Japanese culture, I fell in love with Japan even more deeply after seeing this. If your idea of Japanese movies is Akira Kurosawa and/or anime, then you have to see Itami's movies, and you have to start with this one.
I actually fell onto the floor laughing when I saw this, and it makes me laugh even now. And this is the film (together, now, with Water Boys, Shall We Dance, anything else with Takenaka Naoto, and After Life) I show friends when I want to share Japan (where I lived for ten years) with them.
The wonderful aspect of this movie is the way Itami intercuts the main story, of a woman named Tampopo (Japanese for dandelion, by the way), trying to run a ramen shop and raise a boy on her own, and the two truck drivers who end up helping her recreate that business and teach her son to stand up to bullies, with many of the different ways that Japanese obsess about food. From shopping, to macrobiotic mothers, to ordering in restaurants, to learning how to eat Western food... And Itami's cast, a group of actors he works with time and again, rise to the challenge brilliantly.
If you decide you need to see only one Japanese film, make it this one. And if you're a fan of Japanese film, but have never seen this, then do so immediately!

11 comment 7 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you?YesNo

one of the best movie comedies ever

ByP. Hungon January 15, 2007

Format: DVDVerified Purchase

Nothing translates across cultural boundaries as well as food and sex. Fortunately so does the humor in this film, where everything is equally as savoury as it is sweet and sensual. This Japanese import is an excellent transfer and a Region 0 disc, so it's much better than the overpriced unfortunate Fox Lorber edition, which is fortunately out of print.

0Comment 6 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you?YesNo

Tampopo

ByD. Nelson Aitchisonon November 27, 2006

Format: DVDVerified Purchase

This is one of the best food films ever. Ken Watanabe as a Japanese John Wayne and noodle expert is hilarious. The director also has some great moves. I have enjoyed watching it several times to make sure that I haven't missed anything.