Rating of
3.5/4
The noodles are the story
bwill - wrote on 07/17/08
A great example of complex Japanese storytelling. Tampopo weaves multiple storylines, much like a bowl of noodles.
The story is set up with one truck driver reading a story of an apprentice learning to eat noodles from his master. When the truckers stop for food at a run-down noodle shack, they meet the proprietor, shortly before getting into a fight. You start preparing for a chop socky-style western but it's so much more than that.
Characters come together much in the way that the bowls are prepared. Then they must sit and mature before the perfect bowl of noodles is ready to eat.
