Tampopo [Sub: Eng]

It unfolds as a series of madcap, effortlessly charming comic vignettes, centred around food and food culture in mid-'80s Japan.

There are many love stories folded into this film's enjoyably meandering two hours, but "Tampopo" is above all about the romance of food, and the joyous, agonizing devotion and hard work required to tease out its manifold mysteries.

A biting satire of Japanese culture and its uneasy incorporation of Western influences.

Japanese films have commented before on the intrinsic connection between food and sex, but not with the erotic gusto of Juzo Itami's Tampopo and rarely with the comic lustiness of this broad-scale satire.

Itami's humor and invention is such that we never have a chance to feel deprived. His stylistic palette and sense of fun are so wide-ranging that he can oscillate between brightness and darkness to articulate one gag.

Tampopo is, among many other things, the first "spaghetti eastern" and one of its particular charms is that it celebrates as much as satirizes. No movie gourmet with exotic tastes should miss it.

The film doesn't always work as a whole ... but its individual moments often come close to touching the sublime.

The film was a labour of love for all involved and it shows in every detail.

Moving from the erotic, the absurd, and the tragic, Itami's representations of food give us access to the most intimate areas of people's lives, reminding us of the unique place that food occupies in our humanity.

In Tampopo, every aspect of life is filtered through the prism of food - its rituals of preparation and consumption, its role as a social unifier or divider, its many healthy uses and perverse abuses.

It's one of the greatest food movies of all time, taking time to appreciate the look and feel of the noodle soup.

Tampopo is one of the great food films, its dizzy deliciousness pre-dating our addiction to the Food Network, celebrity chefs and exquisite plating.