Tampopo

Tampopo (タンポポ, Tanpopo, literally "dandelion") is a 1985 Japanese comedy film by director Juzo Itami, starring Tsutomu Yamazaki, Nobuko Miyamoto and Ken Watanabe. The publicity for the film calls it the first noodle western, a play on the term Spaghetti Western (films about the American West made by Italian production studios). Tampopo begins when a pair of truck drivers, an experienced one named Goro and a young sidekick named Gun (played by Tsu... more

Tampopo (タンポポ, Tanpopo, literally "dandelion") is a 1985 Japanese comedy film by director Juzo Itami, starring Tsutomu Yamazaki, Nobuko Miyamoto and Ken Watanabe. The publicity for the film calls it the first noodle western, a play on the term Spaghetti Western (films about the American West made by Italian production studios). Tampopo begins when a pair of truck drivers, an experienced one named Goro and a young sidekick named Gun (played by Tsutomu Yamazaki and Ken Watanabe respectively), happen onto a decrepit roadside fast food stop selling ramen noodles. The business is not doing too well, and after getting involved in a fight, the heroes decide to help the widowed owner, Tampopo ("Dandelion", played by Nobuko Miyamoto), turn her establishment into a paragon of the "art of noodle soup making". The main narrative is interspersed with stories involving consumables on several levels. The primary subplot involves a white-suited yakuza gangster (Koji Yakusho) and his mistress (Fukumi... less