Tampopo

Great foodie fun, Juzo Itami’s “noodle western” slices and dices genres, spices them with sex and mordant wit, and mixes it all up in a blender. His wife and consistent leading lady, Nobuko Miyamoto, is the titular heroine, as bright and sunny as the dandelions she is named after, trying to make the most of her deceased husband’s ramen shop. Tsutomu Yamazaki is the truck driver who drifts into town, Shane-like, to show her the way up the ladder of culinary success, with a Seven Samurai-like crew of helpers. The camera slides away from the main story onto tangents that portray the varied sensual delights of cooking and eating, summed up in the lingering final shot as the credits roll, of a baby breastfeeding. Not quite the hoot it was on first viewing, the jokes do add up to broad cross-cultural survey of responses to food. (1986, dvd@cai, r.) *7+*