The Ramen Girl
Robert Allan Ackerman

The story: Abby (Brittany Murphy), a young American, moves to Tokyo because of her boyfriend and is at a loss when he breaks up with her.
Dejected, she wanders into a ramen shop run by Maezumi (Toshiyuki Nishida) and has an epiphany – she will learn to make the perfect bowl of ramen.

For those who love Tokyo, Sofia Coppola’s Lost In Translation (2003) has always felt false. This is one of the most exciting cities in the world but if Charlotte (Scarlett Johansson) is content to just mope about in her hotel room, little wonder that she feels bored and trapped.
In this new movie, the capital is a city of possibilities, even for someone like Abby who is handicapped by her lack of Japanese. What she has in spades though is a gung-ho attitude.
Of course, it takes a while for that can-do spirit to surface since she does a slipshod job of washing pots and pans in the beginning and then gingerly, and ineffectively, cleans the toilet.
So far, this is pretty much par for the course. You think you have already seen this movie. Abby will learn the ropes, a bond will spring up between her and Maezumi, and by the time the end credits roll, she will be serving up that perfect bowl of noodles.
But this loose remake of director Juzo Itami’s Tampopo (1985) is a little smarter than that and has a few surprises in store.
Unlike the original, there is no eroticising of food here. Instead, there are sprinklings of magic realism, and there is a comical scene that takes place after Abby has cooked a pot of ramen noodles with her tears mixed into it.
Ramen Girl also offers the still unusual romantic pairing of an Asian man (Park So Hee) with a Caucasian woman. There is the mildest of culture clashes when Toshi is posted to Shanghai for a job he does not like and Abby urges him to quit instead. Between fulfilling one’s responsibility and being true to oneself, there is little doubt which way this argument will go.
Cast-wise, Murphy’s wide-eyed ingenue look is perfect for comedies. And if her onscreen persona never becomes annoying, it is because the wonderfully gruff Nishida does exasperation so well that you start feeling sorry for Abby instead.
While she and Maezumi do bond, in a nice touch, the language barrier that divides them remains throughout though it is by no means insurmountable.
Tsutomu Yamazaki, who appeared in Tampopo as a trucker who helps the titular character become a first-class chef, turns in a funny cameo here as a ramen master who can barely keep awake as he bestows his blessings on noodles which meet his exacting standards.
You wonder what he would have made of this movie.
(ST)