Tampopo

Juzo Itami, Japan 1986, 115 mins

Food, sex, violence, food, sex, food.

Thus lies the premise for one of the greatest Japanese film/sex combos ever to hit the screen. A strange description perhaps but then no stranger than the film. Juzo Itami's movie has been given labels like The Seven Samurai of noodles, Zen and the Art of Noodle making, but while none seems to entirely fit the bill, all apply in part.

Itami's film opens with an audience watching a film. A gangster appears and asks us what we are eating. He then informs us that he hates those who eat noisily in the theatre and threatens to kill the crisp eater behind him.

Thus Tampopo begins, starting with the dynamite formula of violence and food, and it continues along this path with gleeful abandon. Tampopo is a noodle chef who one night is visited by Goro, a hungry truck driver. As she serves him, he begins to systematically dissect the food and deliver a lecture on why Tampopo makes some of the worst noodles ever tasted. After Goro is soundly beaten by the other customers Tampopo joins forces with him to seek out the greatest noodles in Japan. Accompanied by a young admirer of Tampopo and a mysterious old man known only as the master, Tampopo learns the art of the noodle through bribery, raking through other restaurants' bins and esoteric statements from the master such as "they have sincerity, but no substance". Tampopo's journey is one of epic proportions, Joycean stature but what of the sex?

Riding alongside this strangest of stories is Itami's second narrative strand (equally preoccupied with food), that of the gangster and his moll. Throughout the story of Goro and Tampopo small vignettes on the subject of food and sex pepper the main narrative strand. Each episode is undoubtedly the product of a very twisted yet brilliant mind. In one, the gangster delicately eats an oyster from a young girl's hand. In the next the gangster and his moll pass a raw egg from one mouth to another, slowly descending on bent knees towards the floor, before the yolk breaks in the moll's mouth and the two crumple to the floor in a fit of post-coital ecstasy.

Tampopo is a superb, wonderful, delight of a film: a work of genius, a piece of comic art which leaves you both hungry and horny. What more recommendation could you wish for?

Andrew Hesketh
EUFS Programme 1998-99

Tampopo is about food, about sex, about the interaction of these two of life's staples, about how closely interconnected they truly are, and, most profoundly, about how each fundamentally connects to the very essence of what it is "to live".

Seeing that her stall is struggling, truck-driver Goro offers to show Tampopo how to make perfect noodles. Unable to do so by himself he sets about gathering the right team, Seven Samurai-style: someone to make the broth, someone to teach Tampopo how to serve properly, someone to do the decor; and so on. They also seek the advice of gastronomic beggars and resort to industrial espionage, all the while fighting off their rivals' attempts to stop them.

Interspersing this main narrative is a sequence of vignettes on the subject of food, and sex. They include the way to truly appreciate pork noodles, zen-style; and if you thought Nutella was fun (and it is) then wait until you see what live shrimps can do for your sex life. Although these episodes are some of the funniest in the film, they also highlight a weakness, since their inclusion springs from the fact that there really isn't enough there, otherwise, to constitute a full-length feature.

Although Tampopo isn't the greatest ever film, it is certainly entertaining; and its twin themes will ensure that you leave feeling hungry.

Review by Iain Lang
Taken from EUFS Programme 1994-95