User:10000BL/The Ramen Girl

The Ramen Girl - Robert Allan Ackerman

• Title: The Ramen Girl
• Year: 2008
• Director: Robert Allan Ackerman

• Trailer

Annotation:

Abby decides to move to Tokyo to be with her boyfriend. She also found a job at a Japanese company as a copy editor. Unfortunately her boyfriend is asked by his work to go to Osaka. Abby asks him to stay, she came for him and is not happy to see him leaving so soon after she arrived. Her boyfriend refuses and It turns out he was not so happy that she came to Tokyo to live with him. The (sort of) break up. Abby is emotional (after the break up) and visits the ramen restaurant that is situated in front of her apartment. Because she is so emotional the owners give her a free bowl of ramen.

The eating of the ramen triggers Abby to see a big Maneki Neko (lucky cat) that moves his paw as if it is luring her into the business of making ramen. This is a magical scene. She comes back the coming days to the ramen restaurant and she sees the Sensei cooking ramen. This is the second magical scene. After eating there for the third time she burst out into laughing while eating ramen (from sad to happy because of the ramen). Her wish from then on is to become a ramen chef. Sensei is initially not happy to teach her and the movie is all about this struggle and stubbornness in cooking/learning how to cook ramen. Sensei and Abby often collide because of cultural differences (Japanese vs. American) and misunderstandings because of language., she can't do anything good in the eys of Sensei. Sensei dislikes her cleaning, decorating the restaurant with Christmas items, introduction of corn as an ingredient for ramen. Abby's main activity throughout the movie consists of repetitive cleaning (reminds me of the Karate kid). The relation between Abby and Sensei stays mostly of the movie difficult, the wife of the sensei is less harsh for Abby and they seem to like each other.

Abby finds out that Sensei has a lost son in Paris and in one scene she sees Sensei crying while looking at the pictures of his son. Sensei would have liked his son to become his successor. For whatever reason this is not possible and Sensei announced in the final scene that Abby is his successor. Abby accept.

In between the struggled relationship of Abby with Sensei, she meets Toshi, who becomes in the end her new boyfriend. There is also a cooking competition where Abby is competing with another chef. For this contest Abby introduces corn a new ingredient. She loses the competition, but learns to cook to perfection. She learns how to cook with love. In the end Abby is back in New York is the proud owner of her own ramen restaurant.

What is the role of food in this movie?

• Eating ramen triggers emotions both negative (crying---> when Abby cooks her ramen for the testpanel) as positive (Cheering up, laughing---> After Abby's break up with her first boyfriend). Emotional eating.
• Eating ramen triggers Abby to see the lucky cat which lures her into the wish of becoming a ramen chef.
• Cooking ramen to make people happy (wish from Abby). Ramen is holy grail.
• A head of a dead pig which sits in a pan waiting to be cooked, frightens Abby when she lift up the lit when she is having a sneak peak. ---> This is also a scene in Tampopo (Tampopo is afraid by the sight of a head of a dead pig).
• To cook ramen, you have to cook by heart (not with head). You have to put soul in your food and there is a set procedure for decorating.
• Food (eating ramen, Ramen museum Yokohama) as a mediator for a date with Toshi.
• Food to invent (using corn in a bowl of ramen).
• Competition between 2 ramen restaurants. The man who judges the bowls of ramen is Tsutomu Yamazaki who played Goro in Tampopo.
• To test a panel of four if your ramen is good enough.
• Food to meat (new) people, socialise.
• Food to create something for myself, to give myself meaning/purpose.

• TRIVIA: The Ramen Girl contains many references to Tampopo (Tsutomu Yamazaki as judge, head of a pig etc).