When two truck drivers - Goro and Gun - stride in like cowboys to help the widow Tampopo with her modest noodle shop, it’s just the launch-pad for Juzo Itami’s utterly original, utterly unforgettable collision of yakuza film, western and slapstick comedy which veers from one crazy food and sex obsessed scenario to the next!
The main narrative is interspersed with various subplots, including a yakuza gangster (Koji Yakusho) and his mistress (Fukumi Kuroda) who find eyebrow-raising new ways to use food. Other satirical vignettes involve a lowly office intern who upstages his superiors while ordering at a gourmet French restaurant, a housewife who rises from her deathbed to cook one last meal for her family, a spaghetti eating etiquette class and a restaurant run by gangsters engaged in stock market scams.
Itami’s hilarious concotion of food, sex and cinema bulges with invention.Engaging in quirky movie parodies of the western and gangster genres and films from Seven Samurai to Death in Venice, Tampopo is sure to satisfy any movie lover’s appetite.
Japanese
English
Japan