I'm sitting in a ramen shop in Auckland N, after having just finished the movie, you guessed it, Tanpopo. It's on the same block I live on and of course by the end of the movie I needed ramen noodles! I've not been here before but have always meant to, while making my decision toward the end of the movie to come here I remembered it was named Tanpopo! I google translate the name and yes it translated Tanpopo to dandelion, no luck with Tampopo. But on the new restaurant at the end of the movie it says Tampopo. Wonders never cease.

You can't write 'Tampopo' in kana. It has to be 'Tanpopo'. Look on the cover of the DVD pictured on the board. Ta n po po, it says.

If you spell "Tampopo" wrong one more time, I will track you down and mash fruit in your face.

Karate Kid with noodles. MSG on, MSG off.

I've seen this movie long after I watched Tanpopo and it pales in comparison to Tanpopo for many reasons that make Tanpopo a masterpiece (at least for a noodle fanatic like me). Tanpopo not only covers the art of noodlemaking (tell me you didnt know how to become a better soup chef after watching this film!), it touches every aspect of the way we are involved with food. From birth (breastfeeding) to death (the scene with the dying mother using her last breaths to nourish her family or the character with his dying wish to enjoy a meal), Tanpopo gave us a tasty visual quest of food as a source of adventure, a measure of failure and success, an object of culture and mannerisms, eroticism (very explicit I might add, although not unnecessary), and so much more by weaving characters from one storyline to another but yet maintaining the main thread of the movie, which is food. There's so much going on here that it's hard to get bored but so much eye candy that your eyes and belly are glued to the screen.
Then you have Ramen girl, a disenchanted American young woman who seeks ramen making guidance from an old fashioned ramen chef. The two share a platonic relationship, which 95% of the audience can't really relate to. While there are some good intentions behind the depicted "struggle" in the movie, you just wonder why the protagonist takes the abuses from chef or why she is so intent on learning how to cook ramen besides the fact that it tasted good to her. I find the title somewhat misleading because food is merely a suggestion in this storyline. Call me crazy but if a "ramen" movie doesn't even have one scene capturing the essence of enjoying a bowl of ramen or where the "secret ingredient" for making good ramen is spirit (sooooo cheesy), then you clearly missed the point.

It just sounds like more of the same from the Asia obsessed Hollywood machine.

This message has been deleted.