The Ramen Girl (2008)

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.

Director:

Robert Allan Ackerman

Writer:

Becca Topol (screenplay)

Stars:

Brittany Murphy, Toshiyuki Nishida, Tammy Blanchard

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Brittany Murphy	...	Abby
Toshiyuki Nishida	...	Maezumi
Soji Arai	...	Toshi Iwamoto (as Sohee Park)
Kimiko Yo	...	Reiko
Daniel Evans	...	Charlie
Renji Ishibashi	...	Udagawa
Gabriel Mann	...	Ethan
Tammy Blanchard	...	Gretchan
Daigo Tanji	...	Taxi Driver
Thane Camus	...	Wilson
Hako Ueno	...	Hanako
Masayuki Maekawa	...	Vendor
Yûya Ogawa	...	College Student (as Yuya Ogawa)
Tomoyuki Kuramoto	...	College Student
Yuta	...	Young Man at the Shrine

Storyline

Abby, four years out of college, an aimless child of privilege, comes to Tokyo to be with her boyfriend, who promptly leaves for Osaka. She wants to stay in Tokyo in hopes he'll come back to her, but she's miserable: she speaks little Japanese and has a dull job as a law-firm gopher. She stumbles into the neighborhood ramen shop operated by the aging master chef Maezumi and his wife Reiko. His soup cheers Abby, so she decides to apprentice herself to him. He's uninterested, she's insistent, so he shouts at her and gives her all the cleaning to do. Weeks go by; she's persistent. Will he ever actually teach her to cook? And if he does, will she bring the requisite spirit to the job?

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Plot Keywords:

race relations | chef | master | stranded | ramen | 

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Taglines:

The Missing Ingredient Is Love.

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Genres:

Comedy | Drama | Romance

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated PG-13 for some sexual content

Details

Official Sites:

Official site [Japan]

Country:

USA Japan

Language:

Japanese English

Release Date:

23 October 2008 (Russia)

Also Known As:

The Ramen Girl

Filming Locations:

Jacksonville, Florida, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$32,000,000 (estimated)

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$179,590

Company Credits

Production Co:

Media 8 Entertainment, Digital Site Corporation

Technical Specs

Runtime:

102 min 122 min (European Film Market)

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

During filming for The Ramen Girl (2008), Brittany Murphy phoned British screenwriter Simon Monjack to tell him how much she liked his script for "The White Hotel," based on the D.M. Thomas novel, which thus set off their first meeting and soon their whirlwind romance.

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Goofs

Thr driver's side is on the right in Japanese cars and in a taxi the passenger normally enters on the left side not behind the driver. In all the scenes, the passengers were getting in the cabs on the right side. Also, As Yoshi was leaving for the airport in the taxi, unless it was a one-way street, the cab should have been traveling in the left lane. Even on a one-way street, however, taxis normally pick up passengers on the left side of the road.

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Quotes

Abby: Somewhere along the way I just forgot what I wanted to do with my life...

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Connections

Referenced in Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations: Japan: Hokkaido (2011)

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Soundtracks

Kitano Ryouba
Written by Seiichi Sakurada and Kaoru Shinjô (as Kaoru Shinjo)
Performed by Saburô Kitajima (as Saburo Kitajima)
Courtesy of Nippon Crown Co., LTD
Courtesy of Kitajima Music Publishers, Inc.

User Reviews

It's Its nice to watch an Asian film with no martial arts, or weird horror plot

A 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