The Japanese take food seriously. This is the land of the Iron Chef and Kobayashi. It’s not just good enough to make food that people will enjoy, one must strive to be the best! When I think about the perfect bowl of ramen, two movies come to mind- The Juzo Itami classic Tampopo, and the straight to DVD 2008 Brittany Murphy film, The Ramen Girl.
Most Americans’ familiarity with ramen is limited to the dried noodle soup variety you can purchase at the grocery store for nineteen cents a piece. Chances are that if you went to college you made some in your electric coffee maker once or twice. To the Japanese, ramen is something a much different- it’s restaurant fast food. When you sit down in a ramen shop you are not there to spend a casual afternoon there. You go in, order one of a handful of varieties of the noodle soup, eat it, pay and get out of there. You can tell the good ramen places because they usually have a line out the door.
In the movie Tampopo, a burly Japanese truck driver in a cowboy hat visits a lonely ramen shop with his buddy. The owner is a single woman trying her best to keep the store afloat and its obvious that she’s having a hard time. When she asks the truck driver how her ramen is, his face cannot hide the fact that his meal is actually pretty terrible. Horrified, she begs the truck driver to teach her the ways of making better ramen! Reluctantly he agrees and the rest of the film introduces a colorful cast of characters (each a ramen master) that give her hints on how to make the perfect soup stock.
Most ramen is made from pork and fish stock. Whatever else is put in the soup is the chef’s secret and it’s what makes one noodle place better than the others. I’ve been lucky enough to find some places in LA that will do a soy or miso based soup, but I know I’m probably missing out.
The only things I know about the late Brittany Murphy are the roles that she played in movies I’ve seen (Clueless, 8-Mile, King of the Hill, Girl Interrupted). Putting those all together I’ve hastily concluded that she usually plays a crazy and/or slutty, confused girl of low intelligence with a good heart (no pun intended here, that’s morbid). In The Ramen Girl, Brittany plays a sweet, but confused girl that follows her jerk boyfriend to Tokyo even though she clearly wasn’t invited. When he inevitably dumps her she hysterically walks into a noodle shop that is closed and refuses to leave until she gets something to eat. The owners of the restaurant are a no-nonsense cook and his caring wife who urges him to give Brittany some ramen so she’ll go the fuck home. He reluctantly does and the soup is so good it not only makes Brittany happy again, she decides that her purpose in life is now to be a great ramen chef!
What? Really? Obviously Brittany’s character has no soul of her own. What they don’t show in the movie is how she previously wanted to be a country singer after a great night of karaoke or how she totally wanted to be a trapeze artist after going to the circus once. That said, the owners of the shop don’t want anything to do with her crazy white ass, but she proves her conviction to them by working at the noodle shop for free and cleaning the floor and the dishes for a couple days straight. Seeing that she’s really serious, the previously curmudgeon shop owner now decides to make her his successor. In the process Brittany learns about hard work and being polite and the shop owners learn how to bend the rules a little and have fun with life.
This is basically the subplot of every film about a westerner (usually American) going to Japan. At first the Japanese hate the loud, obnoxious foreigner who has no respect for their customs or passive way of doing things. But slowly, the American starts to learn the noble ways of Eastern life and in the process the uptight Japanese learns to loosen their tie and live a little. Want examples? How about:
To tell you the truth, I’m just guessing that this is what happens by the end of the film. I don’t really know because I stopped watching it about a half hour in. Brittany Murphy’s character is so annoying and hollow that I just couldn’t watch it anymore. I did watch the trailer afterward and I think I can safely assume I’m right about the rest of the story.
Trailer for The Ramen Girl:
In conclusion, do see Tampopo. It’s an amazing film that any food lover will enjoy. The characters are delightful and the story has a real heart. Also, do see The Ramen Girl and tell me if I was right about the end of the movie. It’s a shame the Brittany won’t be around to make the follow up where her character, after mastering the art of ramen cooking, enjoys a trip to the airport and then decides to be a taxi driver. It’ll be called Taxi Driver.
Trailer for Tampopo:
