The Ramen Girl Movie
Storyline
TAGLINES
In food as in life, sometimes the missing ingredient is love.
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.
| Brittany Murphy | Abby |
| Toshiyuki Nishida | Maezumi |
| Tammy Blanchard | Gretchen |
| Sohee Park | Toshi Iwamoto |
| Kimiko Yo | Reiko |
| Renji Ishibashi | Udagawa |
| Justin Berti | N. Y. Waiter |
| Daniel Evans | Charlie |
| Masayoshi Haneda | Yuki |
| Judai Ikeshita | Depressed Businessman |
| Hajime Inoue | Tak |
| Takanobu Kaneko | Udagawa's Son |
| Man Kato | Office Manager |
| Tomoyuki Kuramoto | College Student #2 |
| Hideki Kurauchi | Merchant #1 |
| Robert Allan Ackerman |
5.50 out of 10 (457 votes)
Visitor Reviews
American girl wants to be a Ramen chef, very nice Britanny Murphy movie.
posted on 25 Mar 2009It is pronounced "rah - mun" not "ray-men".I must say I am rather surprised to see the low IMDb rating for this movie. It is much better and more entertaining than many recent rom-com releases rated higher. While it is a rom-com, it is a subtle one with a good message.Brittany Murphy is Abby, in Tokyo with her working boyfriend. She has a menial job she hates, but being there with him makes it worthwhile. Until one day he tells her he is going to Osaka on business, and doesn't know if he will ever return. We quickly figure out he isn't coming back, but it takes Abby a few hundred unreturned messages left to his answering machine to come to that conclusion.One fateful night, in the rain and hungry, she wanders into the local Ramen shop, they are closed, but since they don't understand English and Abby doesn't understand Japanese, she ends up being comforted with a bowl of Ramen and decides that she wants to learn to be a Ramen chef, apparently something unheard of there. But since she doesn't know that, and no one can tell her, she insinuates herself.The old chef is veteran Japanese actor Toshiyuki Nishida as Maezumi. Immediately we see he is a very difficult man, but Abby is persistent. We learn that Maezumi has a son who didn't want to follow his father as a Ramen chef, and instead went off to Paris to study classical cooking. Maezumi was not happy about this, especially as other veteran Ramen chefs, preparing their own sons to succeed them, taunt him.There are many small side stories, and the movie is fun, but the main theme is Abby trying to make her mark as a Ramen chef.SPOILERS: Eventually Abby gets the old chef to teach her properly, but she likes to innovate. When the "master" comes to their neighborhood to taste her Ramen he likes it, but does not approve. However Abby has found herself, the movie ends one year later, in New York, with her running her own Ramen shop with innovative dishes. And we see a photo of the old chef and his wife with their son in France.
It's Its nice to watch an Asian film with no martial arts, or weird horror plot
posted on 05 Mar 2009A young woman Abby (Brittany Murphy) travels to Tokyo to see her boyfriend and he promptly breaks up with her and she gets a job works in a Tokyo noodle restaurant, where she finds out it is an art form to create one of Japan's favorite dishes. She trains under Japanese master Maezumi (Toshiyuki Nishida) who tests her and teaches her lessons in life and cooking. This is a fun little film and I wasn't expecting to like it so much. There is a lot about Japanese culture and traditions that most Americans like me don't understand , when I think of noodles I think of cheap dried noodles as a food of last resort. There are to this film credit sub titles for the Japanese; I think that if they had of put actor speaking in English it would have been very unauthentic. So there is some very interesting scenes of Tokyo that you don't see in most films, a kind of realistic view of Japanese life. It's nice to watch an Asian film with no martial arts, or weird horror plot, this is more of a romantic comedy and some drama. It's a feel good movie and was suggested to me by a friend as a movie to watch and review, she was right . Brickthrewglass.com
A Creative and Fascinating Fusion of Japanese and American
posted on 25 Aug 2008Shot on location this drama is unique in that it attempts to portray a spoiled (rich) girl literally abandoned in Tokyo Japan and whose solace is found in learning to cook Ramen noodles from a grumpy and difficult Ramen cook. What makes this movie special is its heavy use of actual Japanese dialogue with subtitles and Brittany Murphy's character's actual very limited Japanese. What happens on screen is a rarely seen storyline where the main characters are relatively clueless as to what the other person is talking about. Somewhat like ENEMY MINE (1985), a sci fi movie where the protagonist and antagonist are aliens to each other, Brittany's character and her sensei (teacher) must bumble through somehow. There is also suggestive similarities to SIMPLY Irresistible (1999) where Sarah Michelle Gellar cooks up emotional dishes but without the literal magic in that movie. Unfortunately a few editing problems and storyline line flow are disrupted by the sometimes later collapse or confusion as to the English/Japanese language barrier (where there are a few scenes where it's confusing as to how much Japanese and English the characters understand, and also some underdeveloped backstories and follow-through on their emotionally satisfying resolution (the sensei's son for example). While played as a drama, it is somewhat light on the drama which in some ways misses the opportunity to play it even more straight and serious which may have enabled this movie to become an actual serious contender for an award. The ending also didn't seem to quite gel in some ways as the abrupt nature of the changes in Brittany's character's life seem somewhat sudden and inconsistent with how the movie seemed to be flowing.
ignore the user votes, this movie was actually fun to watch
posted on 09 May 2008I gave this movie a fair 7/10. I would ignore the nonsensical 1/10 and 10/10 ratings and give it a fair shake if you're into Japanese food and culture. I was pretty surprised at how they portrayed Japanese culture...not totally accurate, but not a travesty either. I also wouldn't consider this to be a remake of Tampopo -- totally different characters and story lines. But it was fun seeing the main cowboy hat-wearing guy from Tampopo doing a small role as the ramen grand master. His expressions and eating reactions were hilarious! The filmmakers obviously have a love of japan and its culture, and I can feel their sincerity in sharing this joy through this movie. This movie isn't perfect by a longshot (the whole subplot with the British guy and the southern girl was useless and irritating), but there were some genuinely fun and funny moments. Keep your expectations in check and just enjoy the movie for what it is.
Pleasant comedy about girl finding her spirit...
posted on 14 Mar 2008I think a large part of the negative reaction comes from expectations about what the film is or should be.First of all, this is not a remake of Tampopo, nor is it about food. It actually borrows more from "Like Water for Chocolate" than Tampopo, but the food subplot is an afterthought and a bit of a distraction.It isn't really a rom-com though there is a romantic interest in there. Nor is it really a East meets West type of thing either though that certainly is an element.It is a story about a young girl, who like many young people have wandered aimlessly expecting that life will just happen for them. The Japanese expectation that a big company will take care of them for life is not that much different from the American expectations. Our ramen girl discovers that such a lack of passion and spirit, even when the ingredients are there and all the right steps are followed will lead to a bland soup. A simple metaphor but done fairly well.Brittany Murphy is surprisingly good as the ramen girl and her interactions with the gruff ramen-nazi (wonderfully played by Toshiyuki Nishida) are hilarious. The development of the relationship between the two of them was very well done.I quite enjoyed this film and recommend it as a light pleasant diversion that brings a smile to your face - like a good bowl of ramen should...
boe_dye sez: When will people learn that the ending is just as important as the beginning
posted on 14 Mar 2008This movie was actually pretty good all things considered. Having never seen the original Japanese version I can only assume that the ending was modified for American audiences.The story was pretty good, and had some undertones of "simply irresistible". However those undertones were very random and never really expounded upon.Which in the end was the downfall of this movie. While the story line was good, instead of building up, it started to thin out.So much to the point that the end was a very quick, confusing, and empty.The random subplots and nuances never bloomed which made the end of this film, and ultimately the whole thing very disappointing.Yes it did have a happy ending, but it was empty and without depth. Perhaps the problem was that it played itself out as a romantic comedy, when in reality it wasn't really a romance, hence why I think that certain elements were put in place for western audiences.All in all, it's one of those films that you should really watch if there is absolutely nothing else to do. It is a time waster and background noise.Britney Murphy is cute and spunky actress, and she brought that to the role, however the editing and the ending is what killed the whole thing.
Very watchable...a few plot holes...ending could've been better
posted on 28 Aug 2009Never heard of this movie before my sister started playing it. I guess it wasn't marketed very well. All in all, the movie was enjoyable, especially if you're a fan of Brittany Murphy. She did a pretty great job and it's always pleasant to her smile. Her interactions with her teacher were the best parts of the movie.There was no real need for the other non-Japanese characters as their subplots didn't add much to the movie. Nor was there any real end to their story. The ending was quick and not well thought out, but still okay. Other than that, a very watchable and at times pretty funny movie. Made me crave Ramen!!!