It was sold as the world's first 'noodle western', but this deadpan, mock-hysterical Japanese import is more than just another genre parody. Director Juzo Itami blends equal parts Sergio Leone and Luis Buñuel (circa 'The Phantom of Liberty') to cook up a near plot less satire on a common theme: food, in all its various shapes, forms, and obsessions. Episodic gags and aimless digressions overlap each other with little logic and often no clear punchline: a bereaved father orders his children to finish their mother's last meal after she collapses dead in the kitchen; an etiquette class learns modern table manners from an eavesdropper noisily slurping up his dinner; a dapper gangster and his girlfriend practice (with the aid of a raw egg yolk) the art of epicurean sex. Eventually each loose end leads back to the central story, about an eager but inept proprietress of a mediocre noodle shop guided by a benevolent truck driver towards culinary enlightenment in pursuit of the ultimate bowl of ramen: a process involving rigorous exercise, total mental discipline, Zen philosophy, industrial espionage, and smart interior decorating.
