So much average

Good concept, poorly executed.

good back-story, and good acting

Don't listen to the negative reviews

A widow with a young child runs a small and unsuccessful restaurant. A chance encounter with strangers allows her to grasp a sad truth : her noodle soup just isn't good enough. Accompanied by one of the strangers, who becomes her mentor, friend and bodyguard, she sets out on a quest to make the very best noodle soup in the city. She's not the only one to worry and obsess about Japanese cuisine : all around her there are people heavily invested in food, for a variety of more or less logical, more or less sane reasons.In "Tampopo" food is used and abused, wasted and exalted, reviewed and gobbled, stolen and shared. The movie examines the myriad ways in which humans deal with the basic need for nutrition and it does so against the backdrop of an highly complex society alternating uneasily between tradition and Western influence. The results, just as in real life, can be laugh-out-loud funny, quietly amusing, striking, heartrending or just plain weird."Tampopo" also knows his classics : at the end, the mentor, friend and bodyguard departs after having performed his noble work, just as any knight-errant (or rather, cowboy-errant) from Hollywood legend. As a Belgian reared on Lucky Luke, I found myself singing "I'm a poor lonesome cowboy and I'm a long way from home"...Much to be commended.

Truck driver Gorô and his young sidekick Gun (Ken Watanabe) stop at a rather sad looking noodle shop. They rescue a boy outside from bullies who turns out to be the son of the widowed shop owner Tampopo. Her noodles are not good and she begs Gorô to be her teacher. In desperation, she even tries to buy and steal a soup recipe. They find homeless people who are cooks. With other experts' help, they refine the noodle shop to greater heights. Meanwhile, there is a gangster in a white suit and his girlfriend testing the boundaries of food erotica. Others vignettes also show people with food.This is a strange and wonderful celebration of food. The characters are lovely. Gorô is a cowboy of sorts and even has the hat. It treats the noodle with reverence. Not all of the minor vignettes work but they add to the quirkiness. The old lady who squeezes is odd as hell although I wouldn't call it funny. It's an unusual movie wrapped around a sweet noodle story.

This is quite literally food pornography in many scenes. You can accurately judge the whole film by the credits scene, which is a 2 minute close up of a woman's nipple as she feeds her baby.The film documents the rather Japanese obsession with food and the "correct" way to eat, prepare, or order it. You can tie it into sexual repression and the replacement of enjoying food instead of enjoying sex. (There is no kissing or sex between any of the characters in the two main love stories, unless food is in their mouths.)The main story of a woman seeking to become the best noodle chef is supplemented by several short scenes of random strangers that are loosely based on the food theme as well, but otherwise have nothing to do with the main narrative. A lot of people would probably like this film a lot more if those unrelated scenes were cut out, leaving the main narrative at about 1 1/2 hours. As is, they are often very seriously filmed while meant to be darkly, bizarrely comical. I don't think many people will find them funny, and some scenes actually reinforce a lot of negative ideals in Japan. For example, a couples' food fetishism beginning when a gangster buys an oyster from a child diver (she might be 12 or so) and eats it from her hand, whereby they start making out. A husband attempts to keep his wife alive a few minutes longer by demanding she make the family dinner before dying. An old lady with dementia damages all the food in a grocery store while "inspecting" it, and the store owner chases her around the store.These highlight very real issues in Japan. Ignored mental illness in the elderly. Rigid gender roles and unhappy marriages. The worship and fetishization of young girls by men old enough to be their fathers. Far from being a document of these issues, the film does not seem to censure them in anyway, and actually to support them a bit. Take them out and you're still left with a main story that has hollow comedy, is mired in boring details, and has an irresolute love story. And it's all built around the idea that a woman needs a team of men to teach her how to be a good noodle cook, despite one's comment that "I never believed a woman could be as good of a noodle chef as a man!"Frankly, it's a movie that is cleverly directed, but whose story and tone were archaic at the time, and are even more disgusting by modern standards. Look elsewhere for depth or entertainment.

1st watched 11/15/2009 - 7 out of 10 (Dir-Juzo Itami): Funny, perverted yet touching movie about a group of food critics that help a woman become a master noodle cook and start a restaurant. The story doesn't always follow this basic storyline which is kind of interesting but confusing as well at times. The movie is really about food and the way that the Japanese culture views it. They throw in mini-stories that revolve around food obsessions including a couple that begin the movie talking to us(the audience) and are shown at various times using food in their sexual encounters and their other normal activities of life and death. The main storyline starts with a couple of truck-driving noodle soup enthusiasts visiting a restaurant then helping the woman named Tampopo and becoming her coach. There is a sweetness in the relationships between her and her teachers, especially the main character that likes to wear a cowboy hat(which they use to spoof westerns a couple of times). The extra stories that the filmmakers throw in are a little more vulgar which makes for an interesting contrast of styles. The movie is funny and fun to watch for the most part and gives you a good idea of how the Japanese like their Ramen!! Some of the mini stories don't make a lot of sense except they revolve around food --- so overall this feel good movie is very enjoyable despite it's imperfections.