Tampopo

1985 ‘タンポポ’ Directed by Juzo Itami

The first Japanese Noodle Western

A pair of truck drivers happen onto a decrepit roadside fast food stop selling ramen noodles. The widowed owner, Tampopo, begs them to help her turn her establishment into a paragon of the "art of noodle soup making".

Tsutomu Yamazaki Nobuko Miyamoto Ken Watanabe Koji Yakusho Rikiya Yasuoka Hyōe Enoki Gō Awazu Mario Abe Izumi Hara Isao Hashizume Hisashi Igawa Toshimune Kato Kensô Katô Yoshi Katō Yoshihiro Katô Toshiya Fujita Fukumi Kuroda Nobuo Nakamura Mariko Okada Yoshihei Saga Kinzō Sakura Setsuko Shinoi Hitoshi Takagi Chōei Takahashi Ei Takami Akio Tanaka Masahiko Tsugawa Hideji Ôtaki Narutoshi Hayashi Show All…

Alternative Titles

Dandelion, Tampopo - Os Brutos Também Comem Spaghetti, Tampopo - Magische Nudeln, 탄포포, Paardenbloem

comedy

115 mins More details at IMDb TMDb Report this film

Popular reviews

Review by iana ★★★★½ 4

fifty shades thought they were all that with the ice cube - pass an egg yolk between your mouths THEN get back to me
Review by davidehrlich ★★★★ 2

The saying goes that some people eat to live, and some people live to eat. Juzo Itami’s “Tampopo” is the rare serving of food porn that brings both groups to the table. First released in 1985 (and now returning to theaters with a delectable new 4K restoration), this timeless Japanese classic begins with a petulant gangster bringing a full picnic into a movie theater, and ends with a hungry infant instinctively suckling on his mother’s breast. In between, Itami’s fiercely beloved film unfolds like a prix fixe tasting menu of strange comic delights, the director’s fabulist sensibilities feeding into an episodic foodie fantasia about all of the things that give life its flavor and make it worth savoring.
The only…
Review by John Hollands ★★★★★

Fuck you ratatouille.
Review by Mike D'Angelo ★★★★½ 2

81/100
No doubt I'm forgetting something, but it's hard to think of another film with a structure like this: clear narrative throughline plus multiple tangents related solely by theme. Seeing it during its original U.S. theatrical run, at age 19, expanded my sense of what a movie can be; three decades later, the playfulness still delights, even if not all of the blackout sketches fully satisfy. (The one involving dueling con men is barely even food-related.) It's also clearer to me now that the main story, cannily marketed by New Yorker Films as a "noodle Western," really owes much more to American sports movies and their training montages. Applying the genre's tropes to ramen preparation is an inspired idea that's…
Review by laird ★★★★★ 11

"Apologize to the pork."
One of the most erotic movies of all time. If only there were an English word that meant horny and hungry at the same time. In the decade or so since I saw this last, I forgot about all the surreal digressions from the main plot: the secret ingredients that make this movie so damn fun and delicious. (Except for that egg yolk scene. Gross.)
Review by fran hoepfner ★★★★★ 6

a love letter to putting more food in your mouth before swallowing!
Review by Chris 🦑 ★★★★★ 2

the best western i've ever seen and it's set in japan and is entirely about ramen and other assorted foods so checkmate white people
Review by Monday Seagull 1

The Gods cursed us with two insatiable appetites: sex and food.
Tampopo captures the hilarity of a planet whose inhabitants are either really hungry or really horny.
Review by kailee 🦇 ★★★★½

ur in her dms, i’m passing an egg yolk from my mouth into her mouth we are not the same
Review by Dirk Diggler ★★★★★ 5

An absolute delight. Such an original, clever, funny, tasty, moving, absurd, and oddly comforting film that I just couldn't help but fall completely in love with. Its a feast for the senses and it works on so many levels. It sparked some extra love for food and movies within me. Every vignette are wonderful in their own rights, but I loved the opening about how to eat ramen properly, and I couldn't stop laughing during the food sex scene and the bizarre egg yolk swapping scene. Those end credits was damn weird as well. Tampopo, you make me happy! ... and hungry
"Eat your mother's last meal! Eat it while it's still hot!"
Review by Willow Maclay ★★★★★ 1

Six stars.
Review by Justin Peterson ★★★★½

Criterion Collection Spine #868
(Foreign language film)
(Adam & Justin's Letterboxd Movie Club)
For the love of Japanese noodles this is one uniquely strange, yet tasty movie.
"Munch munch munch ..... SSSSSSLLLLLLUUUUURRRRRPPPPPP!"
(Alternate Tampopo review lead: This ain't just your average dorm room Ramen being served up in these parts.)
With Tampopo's savory reputation it was only a matter of time before I finally got to it, and I never expected it to be such a wonderfully meta and culturally rich experience.
Quick Hits:
- Before the story even kicks-off we get possibly the original 'be respectful in the movie theater' PSA, as this gangster type speaks to the camera to tell the audience what's up
"I'll kill you if you…

Recent reviews

Review by moviedoc ★★★★

A bunch of people help a woman make her ramen better. A gangster and a woman have lots of sex with lots of food. And a few other things happen.
I mean, wow....this is a weird movie. I don't really know what to make of it. It isn't as funny as I would have hoped, unfortunately, but for anyone who loves Japanese food (especially ramen), or is just a foodie in general, there is a je ne sais quoi about this movie. Like eating a new type of food for the first time, it just hits that spot.
And it made us hungry. We're gonna go out to get some ramen tomorrow.
Review by iheartsethrogen ★★★★½

#foodporn🤪
On a serious note I could watch this multiple days in a row so so perfect
Review by nwong1 ★★★★★

so fun/entertaining + pretty food!!!
Review by armchair1 ★★★★½

finally the movie for a chef like me!
ramen and egg :)
Review by blaze20k ★★★★½

Quite literally "food porn"
Review by Krista ★★★★

such a delightful movie
Review by John_tyska ★★★★★

I threw out all of the instant ramen in my house after seeing this because I will never settle for anything less than Tampopo Scallion Soba
Review by Francisco Ocampo ★★★★★

Es la mejor película sobre comida que he visto en mi vida porque no se trata sobre un chef, sobre alguien que come, o sobre un restaurante. Tampopo, en su núcleo, se trata sobre la comida como experiencia estética y erótica, y al mismo tiempo un juego permanente con el audiovisual.
En momentos es algo caótica. En otros, un poco asquerosa, pero permanentemente expresiva, graciosa y evocativa. A mí me gustó un montón, pero es probable que no sea una película para todos.

¿O le puse 5 estrellas porque tiene popo en el nombre?
Nadie lo sabrá.
Review by Ryan_McL ★★★

March Around the World - Day 2 - 🇯🇵
Overall, I feel this was interesting but could’ve been so much better. I liked the overall concept and the way it satirized multiple popular American genres, but I also feel that so much more could’ve been done with this. The acting was not that good to me and I felt uninterested at multiple points. Might revisit in the future to see if my thoughts change, but as of now, a disappointment.
Review by hedgenogg ★★★★

Ramen!
Review by mbolssens ★★★½

Chef meets Fifty Shades of Grey in een Japanse satire, en dat is leuker dan je misschien verwacht. En nu heb ik honger
Review by Con Seannery ★★★★★

You get major props when your film has the weirdest structure known to humankind and it’s thoroughly entertaining from start to finish. This catapulted to the top of my already microscopic list of films that broke the fourth wall and did so appropriately. Superb directing, fantastic acting all around. There are a couple uncomfortable scenes that still fit into the scope of the film. Passing raw eggs mouth-to-mouth and fingering food at the market triggered the germophobe in me HARD. I will totally watch this again.