The Ramen Girl (2008)

Director:

Robert Allan Ackerman

Writer:

Becca Topol (written by)

Release Date:

23 October 2008 (Russia)

Genre:

Comedy | Drama | Romance

Tagline:

In food as in life, sometimes the missing ingredient is love.

Plot:

An American woman is stranded in Tokyo after breaking up with her boyfriend. Searching for direction in life, she trains to be a râmen chef under a tyrannical Japanese master.

Plot Keywords:

Master | Japanese | Ramen | Race Relations | Tokyo Japan

Cast

Brittany Murphy	...	Abby
Toshiyuki Nishida	...	Maezumi
Tammy Blanchard	...	Gretchan
Sohi Paku	...	Toshi Iwamoto
Daniel Evans	...	Charlie
Kimiko Yo	...	Reiko
Renji Ishibashi	...	Udagawa
Gabriel Mann	...	Ethan
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Maria Abe	...	Asami
Reila Aphrodite	...	Natsu
Kosei Asami	...	Young Boy
Justin Berti	...	NY Waiter
Thane Camus	...	Wilson
Sonha Chô	...	Ueno
Jorge Diaz Rodriguez	...	Latino Customer
Mimi Furuya	...	Twin Babies - Aiko
Ruru Furuya	...	Twin Babies - Emiko
Dona Granata	...	Female Customer
Masayoshi Haneda	...	Yuki (as Masayoshi Hanada)
Takahiro Hirano	...	Kuma
Jûdai Ikeshita	...	Depressed Businessman
Sonya Inge	...	NY Waitress
Hajime Inoue	...	Tak
Tomiko Ishii	...	Megumi
Mai Ishikawa	...	Elf #2
Takanobu Kaneko	...	Udagawa's Son
Man Kato	...	Manager
Haruki Kobayashi	...	Jin
Tomoyuki Kuramoto	...	College Student
Hideki Kurauchi	...	Merchant 2
Ken Maeda	...	Harumi
Masayuki Maekawa	...	Vendor
Tiffany Martin	...	NY Young Female Cook
Shôichirô Masumoto
Sachiko Matsuura	...	Secretary
Kaori Momoi	...	Mamasan (scenes deleted)
Akiko Monou	...	Mio
Shû Nakajima	...	Merchant 3 (as Shu Nakajima)
Kazumi Nakamura	...	(voice)
Masayoshi Nogami	...	Merchant 1
Yutaka Oda	...	Kendo Master
Takako Ogasawara	...	Elf #1
Yûya Ogawa	...	College Student (as Yuya Ogawa)
Rei Okamoto	...	Midori
Hisako Ôkata	...	Maezumi's Mother
Edward L. Papazian	...	N.Y. customer
Naoki Saitô	...	Kenichi (scenes deleted) (as Naoki Saito)
Shinji Suzuki	...	Goth Boy at the Shrine
Daisuke Takahashi	...	Tom
Kazuya Takahashi	...	Male Singer
Nichita Tanabe	...	Harumi's Colleague (as Nitta Tanabe)
Daigo Tanji	...	Taxi Driver
Ken Toyama	...	Suzuki
Justin Tyler	...	Restaurant Goer
Takaki Uda	...	Akira
Hako Ueno	...	Hanako
Tsutomu Yamazaki	...	Grand Master
Yuta	...	Young Man at the Shrine

Also Known As:

Râmen gâru (Japan)

MPAA:

Rated PG-13 for some sexual content.

Runtime:

102 min | Germany:122 min (European Film Market)

Country:

USA | Japan

Language:

Japanese | English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

USA:PG-13 | Singapore:PG | Australia:M | UK:15

Filming Locations:

Jacksonville, Florida, USA

Company:

Media 8 Entertainment

Quotes:

Maezumi: I Know the problem. Your Forehead is too small. A small Forehead means a small brain. Like a monkey. You should be swinging from a tree screaming "kya kya kya".
Maezumi: If you just look at the ramen you'll feel it.
Maezumi: Stop thinking about words! Use your heart!

Soundtrack:

My Wild Side

Despite the whole weeaboo aspect, it was a pleasant film

The story is basically a American slacker coming to Tokyo to meet her American boyfriend, but her boyfriend dumps her after sleeping with her and just leaves her. In despair the girl tries to find joy by putting smile on other peoples faces by making ramen, and soon becomes a apprentice to a ramen chef. I think critics are being too harsh on this movie. It is a pleasant and touching movie and I was grinning at some parts through it. This film can sort of be compared to "The Karate Kid" and it's sort of similar in the way how Daniel Larusso(Ralph Macchio) learns and sort of becomes a apprentice in the beginning to Mr. Miyag(Pat Morita). But in this film Brittany Murphy character Abby becomes a apprentice Maezumi(Toshiyuki Nishida) who put on a good performance, as a matter of fact the chemistry between Abby and Maezumi seem authentic in a apprentice and master kind of way. It also had a bit of "Simply Irresistible"(1999) elements to it. Now I agree with some of the critics that the language barrier between these two characters got a bit annoying after a while and you start to wonder why couldn't they have gotten Abby's new boyfriend to translate for both. And I thought the story was far fetched as well with the spirit in the ramen and all, although how it showed the perfection behind the ramen to be cool. Also some may say the ramen chef is a tyrant in this film but he was just being the typical leader in running a restaurant. And there are a lot of chefs like him in many Asian restaurant and other countries as well, although he goes a bit over board on some scenes. When I first saw the cover of this film I was going to pass on it since it seemed to have weeaboo all over. But decided to give it a try for the heck of it and it turned out to be a pleasant film although it did have some weeaboo aspects to it. And weeaboos will probably enjoy this film than others and get some fantasies in there heads which was the thing I disliked the most about this film. And the undeveloped back story hurt the film as well, there is also a lot of deleted scenes that was taken out for good reasons but some scenes would have been a nice touch if it made it into the whole film. Despite some flaws or aspects I disliked, I found it quite fun.

7/10