Tampopo

A "Japanese Noodle Western".

By Jenni Moody
July 2, 2007

The first time I saw Tampopo was several years ago during a Japan Club movie night. We were eating gyoza and talking, so only pieces of the movie caught my eye. I found the movie at my local library two years ago, and recently checked it out again to rewatch. It is one of those movies that you can watch several times before knowing what to think about it. The best way to describe this movie is a Western Comedy. The spoken language is Japanese, with white English subtitles. The subtitles are, for the most part, great direct translations. The story takes place on the outskirts of a large unnamed city in Japan. Tampopo was filmed in 1985, but there are very few details that date the movie.

The following is a summary of the movie scene by scene with my comments. If you'd like to get a feel for the movie, the first quarter of this article can give you an overview without spoiling the major plot threads. But beyond that, if you would rather not be spoilered, please watch the movie first.

The movie begins in a movie theater. A man in a white suit and hat leads his female companion and a group of bodyguards down to the front row. The bodyguards set a table in front of the White Suited Yakuza man, and place wine and a large cooked turkey on the table. The White Suited Yakuza notices us, the audience, and addresses us directly. "Ah, so you are at a movie, too?" He shares his views on moviegoing, and how he hates hearing other people's eating noises during movies. To illustrate this, he gets up and confronts a man eating potato chips in the row behind him. Then he sits down beside his companion, and the lights dim.

"Hey, our movie's starting."

The music changes from bland background strings to overtly pompous drums. An 18-wheeler is driving on a highway at night in heavy rain. There is a brief shot of Goro, wearing a dark cowboy hat and gritting his teeth as he drives the large truck. He is lean and rough looking, but handsome. It is obvious from the beginning that Goro is the kind-hearted cowboy in this movie.

Suddenly, it is daytime in a ramen shop. A young man and an old man are sitting side by side at the counter. The young man wears a florid Hawaiian t-shirt, and his sensei wears impeccable traditional men's clothing. Their ramen arrives, and the younger man asks his sensei for advice on how to best eat the noodles. The advice the sensei gives his student is ridiculous. "First, caress the surface with the chopsticks to show affection."

The dialogue is so silly that the scene changes back to Gun and Goro in the truck. Gun throws down the book in disgust, but Goro tells him to keep reading.

Again in the ramen shop, the sensei taps the pork on the side of his bowl three times. The student watches, entranced by this unexpected move. He asks his teacher what tapping the pork means? The teacher answers that it is simply to drain the pork of its juice before eating it.

Goro says the book is making him hungry, and they pull over at a ramen shop. On the sidewalk beside the ramen shop, a small boy named Tabo is being beaten by his classmates. Goro and Gun stop the other children, and run with the small boy into the ramen shop. The ramen shop is dismal. The walls are an unclean dark grey. The shop has only a few people in it, and all of them are rough-looking men. Behind the counter, a kind-looking woman is cutting green onions. She welcomes them into her shop, "Irashaimase!" and begins to make their ramen. Pisken, a wealthy and overweight man, sits at the far end of the bar bugging Tampopo. Pisken is drunk, and loudly asks Tampopo why she won't sell the ramen shop to him. After a minute of this, Goro flicks the kamaboko (a small pink and white spiral seafood loaf slice) from his ramen onto Pisken's face. Goro tells Pisken, "If you want to fight, try me." Pisken and his gang wait until Goro finishes his ramen, and then they go outside into the rain. Goro tells Gun to deliver the truck, and Goro fights alone against five men.

Tampopo and her son, Tabo, huddle in the doorway watching the fight. All we see are flying debris and punching shadows. The next morning, Goro wakes up groggy on the kitchen counter with a black eye and cuts on his face. Gun returns with the emptied truck, and Tampopo makes everyone breakfast. Goro and Gun agree that Tampopo's cooking is great, especially her pickles. But her ramen needs serious work. Tampopo says that since her husband died, she has been trying to run the ramen shop. Tampopo asks for their advice on how to be a better ramen cook. They agree to give her some pointers. Downstairs, Gun pretends to be a customer and Goro coaches her on how to observe her customers. If they sip the soup immediately, then that is a bad sign. For the ramen's soup to be good, it must be much too hot to sip at first.

As Goro and Gun begin to drive the truck away, Tampopo runs out and asks if Goro will become her teacher.

A training montage follows. Tampopo lifts a large pot of water from one side of the kitchen to the other. Six bowls are on the counter and Tampopo has to ladle noodles into all of them without letting any noodles drop on the counter. Next, Tampopo stands behind the counter in a sweatsuit with her arms above her head in the gymnast start position. Goro holds a stop watch. He yells for her to start, and Tampopo hurriedly begins making noodles. She sets a finished bowl of ramen on the counter in front of Goro and he stops the clock. "3 minutes 15 seconds. You have to beat 3 minutes," he tells her. The montage slows down to the pace of the rest of the movie. Goro slowly pedals a bicycle as Tampopo jogs by the river. Goro blows a whistle and Tampopo starts circling Goro's stopped bike, stretching her arms in a slow windmill. Beside Tampopo and Goro, a group of businessmen stroll down the steps.

The camera follows the businessmen into a private room at an expensive French restaurant. The group of six men is split into two sides — the three businessmen and their three clients. As they enter the private room, the youngest of the businessmen trips and drops the briefcases he is carrying for everyone else. He begins to sit before the others are seated, and his colleague pulls him up by his collar. The men order an uninspired meal of Heineken beer, sole, and a soup. But the young businessman sets himself apart in a good way. He confers with the waiter, showing his expertise of French food. The waiter compliments him on his taste and knowledge, and walks out of the room. The rest of the men at the table have very red faces, and bow their heads silently.

As the waiter leaves, the camera follows him out into the main restaurant. A prim woman with a powdered white face teaches an all-female class how to eat spaghetti. As she instructs her students how to eat silently, a large American man across the room slurps his spaghetti loudly. The students listen silently to their teacher's instructions, and then begin to eat the spaghetti. But they do not eat silently. They hoover the spaghetti in, making loud noises. The teacher continues to eat silently for a moment, and then she joins her students by slurping loudly.

Another waiter enters the restaurant from the kitchen, pushing a cart of food. He knocks on a hotel room door, and the White Suited Yakuza opens it slowly.

His companion is naked on the hotel bed. The White Suited Yakuza man pours salt and lemon on her breasts, and then licks it off. His companion dips her breast in whipped cream and lowers it into his mouth. Honey flows across his lips and they kiss. The one action in this scene that freaks me out is the prawns scuttling on her stomach, trapped by a clear glass bowl. This is probably because of the movie The Matrix, where the bugs enter Neo's belly button. That association combined with a general dislike of touching things with many legs makes me shiver everytime, laughing. The screen closes into a small circle, and then goes black.

Back to Tampopo.

Tampopo and Goro stand outside a busy ramen stand. Goro tells Tampopo that this noodle place is not very good, but that it still has people lining up to eat. Next, they visit a ramen shop where two older men are cooking. Goro admires the way every movement has purpose — no energy is wasted. Goro takes Tampopo to a ramen shop by a train station. The train arrives, and people fill the shop. They order quickly, without being asked. Goro tells Tampopo that it is very important to not only remember what type of ramen her customers want, but in what order they asked for the ramen. Tampopo surprises Goro and the customers by naming all of the orders in sequence correctly. This 'ramen shop visit' segment is great for showing different types of ramen shops accurately.

Tampopo does some learning on her own. She goes to a ramen shop, and asks the chef if she can pay for his soup recipe. The man says he will tell her if she loans him a million yen. A customer hurries over, and tells her that he will give her the secret for 30,000 yen. Tampopo comes to the customer's shop at night, and is hurried to the back of the store. Tampopo begins to get worried that she might be in trouble, when the man pulls back a piece of wood to show the ramen chef's kitchen, where he is making his soup.

Back at Lai Lai Ramen, Tampopo tries making the soup the same way. She lights a cigarette, and sits back.

Tampopo and Goro ask for their bill at a ramen shop. They have barely eaten their ramen, and the loud chefs ask what was wrong with their food. Goro and Tampopo tell the chefs what was wrong with the ramen with brutal honesty. The chefs get mad, and demand to taste Tampopo's noodles to see if they are better. The next morning, Tampopo and Goro are hurridly preparing the ramen when the rival chefs walk in. They hold Goro in a corner and yell at Tampopo to fix the ramen right away. As the leader holds Tampopo's face next to the boiling soup, Tampopo screams and wakes up back in her shop. She has ruined the soup by falling asleep. She turns the pot over onto the floor and runs outside to put a closed sign on the door. Goro walks up right as she does this, and tells her they should talk to The Master about how to make a good soup.

Tampopo, Tabo and Goro walk to the park at night. A vagabond calls to Goro, and they walk over to join the group. The vagabonds are all gourmands. They talk about the sake from different restaurants, and the food quality going down due to automated lettuce cutting. One vagabond notices that Tabo is not eating his food, and asks him what he would like instead. Tabo asks for a rice omelette, and the vagabond leads Tabo into a kitchen that is closed for the night. The vagabond silently shows off his gourmet cooking skills, and then he and Tabo leave just as a security guard notices the open door.

Back in the park, the vagabonds sing goodbye to their master. He is leaving to help teach Tampopo. Their singing skills are as good as their cooking.

Listening to the vagabonds' song from a window in a hotel room, the White Suited Yakuza turns to find his companion dressing herself. He walks over to her and breaks open a raw egg. He places the yolk in his mouth, and they pass it between each other without breaking the yolk.

By the sea, the White Suited Yakuza watches a girl emerge from the water. She has been diving for oysters. He asks if she will sell him one, and she opens the shell for him with her knife. He cuts his lip on the shell, and she stands to loosen the oyster's meat for him. She places the meat in her hand, and he sucks it out of her palm. The girl turns his head and licks the blood off of his lips. A train rattles by above them.

On the train, a man is in pain from an abcess in his mouth. A young girl serves lunch to him, but he can't eat it. In the dentist's office, the doctor breaks open the abcess and the assistants run to open the window. After the operation, the doctor tells the man he can eat anything, but to start with something soft. The man eats an ice cream in the park, and notices a small boy watching him. The boy has a note around his neck and part of a carrot. The note asks that no one give the boy sweets, as he is only allowed to eat natural food. The man offers the ice cream to the boy, and the boy clenches his hand before accepting. The picture circles out.

Back in Lai Lai Ramen, The Master no longer looks like a vagabond. He is clean and looks like a kindly professor. He pulls a pig's head out of a wrapper, and Tampopo faints. Goro, Gun, The Master and Tampopo go out to eat at a soba shop. A wealthy older man is shown to the back of the shop, near Tampopo's table.

The wealthy man's wife instructs him not to order tempura soba, shiruko, or kamonamban. Then she leaves with their driver to go to the bank. The man orders just what was forbidden, and moments later is choking on the floor. Goro and Gun turn the man upside down, and Tampopo uses a vacuum cleaner to extract the rice cake from the man's throat.

At the wealthy man's house, he invites them to enjoy a "Special Suppon" in thanks for saving his life. They all get up to watch the chef prepare the dish. The chef places a live, small snapping turtle on the chopping block. I loved turtles when I was young, and still have an affinity for them, so I couldn't watch this next sequence. My boyfriend summarized the actions for me, and said that the chef cuts the turtle's throat and drains the blood. After the turtle, the group goes outside. The wealthy man's driver, Shohei, also cooks. He prepares some ramen and asks for the guests to sample it. Tampopo and Goro both pronounce the ramen to be delicious. The wealthy man offers Shohei's help in making Tampopo's ramen shop the best.

Tampopo now has a squad of teachers. The Master is in charge of the soup. Shohei is in charge of the noodles. And Goro and Gun will take care of the atmosphere. At Lai Lai, Goro leads the team in deciding on the menu. They will keep the menu simple by serving only pork and plain ramen. Since there is a new menu, they decide to change the ramen shop's name. They decide on Tampopo, and Goro paints a new sign for the shop.

Shohei and Tampopo look through the trash of a ramen shop to find out their ingredients. They visit another ramen shop, and love the noodles. "Smooth but strong," Tampopo pretends to be a regular at the shop in order to get the recipe. If you look to the side in this scene, you can see a cool geeky girl. She has awesome big black-rimmed glasses.

Outside Tampopo Ramen, Goro cleans off the top of his rig with water. As he climbs down, a car screeches to a halt beside him. Pisken grabs Goro's arm, and says last time he was too drunk to stop his gang from fighting. Pisken challenges Goro to a fair one-on-one fight, and they start throwing punches underneath the overpass. Exhausted, they both fall down in the grass. Pisken remodels bars and nightclubs for a living, and tells Goro he wants to help make Tampopo's ramen shop better. Together, they limp into Tampopo's shop and she screams for them to not fight. Pisken and Goro start making plans on how to remodel the shop, while Tampopo smiles.

Gun decides that Tampopo needs a makeover, too. He invites some men over and they set to work. Goro waits outside, watching the river and cityscene. Inside, Tampopo wears a tall white chef's hat, an elegant black apron, and a white blouse: "Like a film star in a French movie." Then a sheet is held up and Tampopo is transformed into a scary 1950's girl. Her hair is curled and huge under a small black hat. She wears a garish red polkadot dress. Her tone changes to whiny, and she begs Goro to take her out. Tampopo's usual dress may be plain, but it is also elegant and suits her natural disposition. It is jarring and gross to see her change so easily. At a restaurant, they wrap meat into lettuce leaves and share the stories of their spouses. Goro's wife left with the kids. "I don't know how to act in a decent home." Tampopo's husband drank lots of sake before he died. Walking home, it begins to rain. None of the taxis will stop for them, and they arrive at Tampopo's house soaking. Goro takes a bath, noticing the bra and panties that are drying on the towel rack. He brushes his hair with Tampopo's brush, and then puts his hat back on. Tampopo gathers Goro's wet clothes that he left oustide the bathroom door, pausing a moment before grabbing his underwear. She leaves a clean set of clothes (including a shrink-wrapped pair of boxers) in their place.

Outside Tampopo's house an older woman walks by. The camera follows her into an upscale food store. She grabs a peach and pinches it until it squirts on her. The clerk notices and chases her. He finds her on the next aisle, pinching cheese. Again she runs away, this time to the fresh pastries. The clerk sneaks up on her, and swats her hand with a fly-swatter. Later, the man closes the shop and goes to a restaurant. He makes eye contact with a man who is eating the same food across the room. The camera leaves the clerk, and follows the conversation of the other man.

A slimy man sits next to a professor. He says that the time is ripe to invest in his opportunity, and asks the professor if he will invest his savings. The professor says he will extract his savings on Monday, and the slimy man rushes off to make a phone call. Just as the professor reaches into the slimy man's coat pocket and pulls out his wallet, a police officer clasps handcuffs onto the professor's wrist. The policeman asks him if he ever gets tired of pretending to be a professor. The pretend professor asks for one last taste of the food, since he will miss it once he is in jail. The policeman relents, and the pretend professor relishes a few more bites. On the street, the pretend professor asks what will happen to him. The policeman's answer is cut off as a man runs past them.

The man runs for a while, into a small apartment right beside the train tracks. Inside, three children watch a doctor and nurse monitoring the pulse of a very thin and pale woman. The man, her husband, shakes her and tells her to live. He orders her to make dinner, and she wobbles over to the kitchen and makes fried rice. A train shakes the apartment, its passengers eerily well-lit. They look like they are on a spaceship traveling through the universe. The woman places a pot of rice on the table. The husband tastes it and says, "It's delicious! Delicious!" hoping it will keep her here. The children fill their bowls and begin eating. She smiles briefly, then falls over. The doctor rushes over and feels her pulse and then checks her eyes. "I"m sorry. She's dead." A child begins to wail, another train rumbles by, and the father orders his grieving children to eat the last meal their mother made them. This scene is unexpected and harsh. When the mother falls over she hits her head on the table, and looks very corpse-like. This small story always makes me sad, even though most of the movie has a very comedic tone.

(Major Spoilers below. So stop here if you don't want to know the ending just yet.)

Again at Tampopo's ramen shop, the five senseis try Tampopo's latest ramen. But it still isn't up to par. Pisken tells the others they should praise Tampopo because her ramen is much better than it was. The others agree, but say it is still not good enough to make people wait in line. To cheer her up Pisken shows her his secret ramen recipe. The senseis think it is delicious. They decide that Tampopo can sell Pisken's recipe as the Spring Onion Special.

Tabo fights back against the bullies, and more people begin to frequent Tampopo's ramen shop. Late at night, Tampopo tastes her ramen and tells Tabo that this recipe will pass the test. If Goro and the rest of her teachers sip the soup to the last, then she has won. The next morning, they gather outside and walk in like a band of outlaws. They eat without talking, slurping the soup and eating the noodles quickly. Tampopo nervously watches them, hoping this time her ramen will be deemed worthy. The drums grow louder. In unison, they all raise the bowls to their mouths and sip the last of the soup. "Perfection!" "Superb!" "Congratulations!" Tampopo cries into her apron.

Pisken demolishes the interior of the shop with a large sledgehammer. Amid the demolition sounds, there are gunshots. Outside, in the rain, the White Suited Yakuza grabs his chest as his blood begins to soak through his shirt. His companion rushes to him, and pleads for him not to die. He tells her a story of hunting wild boars in winter. They only eat yams, since other food is scarce. When you shoot them in winter and cook them, you have yam sausages. She agrees that that sounds delicious, "Yes, they'd be nice with soy sauce and horseradish." He tells her he would have loved to eat them with her, and then asks her to be quiet. His final movie is beginning. The scene abruptly circles out.

Tampopo's remodeled ramen shop is painted white, with a dandelion on the top of the sign. Inside the shop is clean and white, with a light wood counter. Tampopo is wearing her makeover chef's outfit. Children run to the door and call in a friendly way to Tabo. He runs out to join them. The Master says, "Frankly, I never thought a woman could become a good noodle cook." Throughout this movie, I never considered that Tampopo was a bad ramen chef just because she was a woman. I thought she was a bad ramen chef because she had not studied how to cook ramen. This remark always shocks me, since it is so out-of-place with the rest of the movie. Tampopo is always treated as an equal, even within the student/teacher relationship.

Tampopo hangs the red Ramen sign outside, and customers start filing in immediately. Tampopo's senseis drift outside to make room for them. Goro is the last to leave. At the door he turns, and takes one last look at Tampopo. She stops amid cutting green onions to smile and nod. Outside, the line is already forming. Gun sits in the truck, and motions to Goro that it is time to leave. The Master pushes his bike to the road, and Shohei climbs in the front of a car to chauffer the rich man's wife to the bank. Pisken tells Goro, "We did it! Didn't we?" "Yes, We did." Goro drives away.

The camera pans from the freeway, where Goro's truck is vanishing on the horizon, to the park near Tampopo's ramen shop. A mother is breastfeeding an infant. The camera circles around her, slowly zooming in to the infant enjoying its meal.

Tampopo — The wikipedia entry
Tampopo - IMDb — The Internet Movie Database entry
Ramen — The wikipedia entry
rameniac — webwide noodling