Tampopo (Dandelion)

Released: 1986
Length: 114 minutes
Producer: Itami Juzo, et al
Director: Itami Juzo (1933-1997)
Screenplay: Itami Juzo
Cinematographer: Tamura Masaki
Music: Murai Kunihiko

Cast:

Goro................................................................Yamazaki Tsutomu
Tampopo...........................................................Miyamoto Nobuko
Gun.........................................................................Watanabe Ken
Gangster...................................................................Yakusho Koji
Pisken....................................................................Yasuoka Rikiya
Shohei.......................................................................Sakura Kinzo
Tabo.....................................................................Ikeuchi Mampei
Master of Ramen-making.............................................Kato Yoshi

Commentary:

Itami's approach in making Tampopo is in some ways characteristic of all his films, and in other ways quite different. The film has in common with his other works its independent funding (Itami raised the money himself), many members of the cast (including Yamazaki and Itami's wife Miyamoto, both of whom have appeared in all his films, and Itami's son Mampei), and its light touch. Indeed the latter is perhaps also the thing which most distinguishes Tampopo from Itami's other films. Although both The Funeral and A Taxing Woman are also funny, the serious social commentary they contain is more directly obvious than in Tampopo: It's almost too easy to read Tampopo as nothing more than a farce; a parody of spaghetti westerns, samurai films, Rocky, Tom Jones, and all sorts of Hollywood pomposity. Surely in all these scenes about food and sex, Itami is trying to do more than simply make us laugh??!??!

One technical point to watch for is how skillfully seemingly extraneous detours are woven into the main story about Tampopo and her ramen shop. These transitions are handled quite neatly, often by the camera following a character who has wandered into one scene out of that scene and into the next one.

Itami is one of the few Japanese film directors who looks at the world through a comic lens. He is also one of those most able to step outside his own society. In an interview in the May 24, 1987 "New York Times", he said:

My generation is the first one that experienced the gap between pre-war Japan and a postwar life that suddenly had to confront American and European culture up close. We share pure Japanese ways of thinking and Western ways of thinking, although sometimes they are in conflict. So in a sense it's my generation's role to look at Japan as though from outside.