the ramen girl, now serving on DVD
I’ve resisted writing about The Ramen Girl, largely because Ed already beat me to the punch (bowl). What’s not to love about this Brittany Murphy vehicle, a Tampopo meets Lost in Translation-inspired rom-com featuring Japanese character actor Toshiyuki Nishida as a cranky old ramen chef and (woo hoo) an all-too-rare Asian male love interest? The truth is, a little over a year ago, the fine folks at Media 8 Entertainment invited me to a screening of the film, and I had hoped to help the filmmakers generate some hype for it by waiting until they had secured distribution and a release date before drumming up some buzz. Yes, rameniac can be bought, for the price of a free movie and a couple of hours of air conditioning!
Alas, The Ramen Girl has gone straight to DVD - a bit disappointing, but Hollywood is a competitive industry, and marketing budgets are not quite as stratospheric as they used to be. It’s not a bad film, quite a little charmer in fact, with a surrealist/magical bent and a soup-through-the-nose sequence that any true rameniac (and movie buff) will surely be able to reference. I won’t give it away. Suffice it to say that the noodling is authentic, Nishida-san turns in a great performance, and you’ll walk out of your home theater hungry for a bowl of the you-know-what.
image courtesy of ビ久タ
You’d think Brittney Murphy would warrant at least a small theater run.