Japan
was one of Singapore’s most important trading partners during the city-state republic’s
early years of independence and it is still true today. The two nations enjoy
strong economic and political ties, yet many older Singaporeans still bitterly
remember the pain of the Japanese occupation. These long harbored resentments
led to a schism within a Japanese ramen chef’s family. However, he will find
cathartic healing through food in Eric Khoo’s Ramen Shop, which opens today in New York.
If
you want to get technical about it, Masato will leave the film’s proper ramen
shop after about fifteen minutes, following the death of its master chef, his
emotionally detached father Kazuo. While going through his father’s effects, he
found letters and his Singaporean mother’s Mandarin journal. Although he cannot
read them, they fire his curiosity regarding the family she was estranged from.
Hoping to find answers, as well as recipes for the local-style comfort food she
used to cook for him, Masato impulsively returns to the Singapore he only knew
as a small boy.
With
the help of Miki, a food blogger he met online, Masato tracks down his Uncle
Wee, who is delighted to welcome him into the family and teach him the recipe
for Bak Kut Teh, or pork ribs soup. Unfortunately, the grandmother Masato never
met will be pricklier to approach.
In
many ways, Ramen Shop is a text book
example of weepy culinary cinema. Many a sentimental tear will be shed over
warm bowls of soup. However, Masato’s smart and sensitively drawn relationships
with Uncle Wee and Miki elevate the film to a higher level. Khoo and screenwriters
Tan Fong Cheng & Wong Kim Hoh deliver plenty of the expected big hanky
moments, but the real pay-off is surprisingly subtle. It also should be
stipulated pork ribs soup looks delish, even if it isn’t as photogenic as other
movie-memory-stirring foods.
Takumi
Saito is achingly earnest as Masako. He also develops some warm and deeply
compelling chemistry with Mark Lee and Seiko Matsuda, who both ironically
overshadow him as Uncle Wee and Miki respectively. Lee provides the film some
comic nervous energy, but never gets remotely shticky, whereas the luminously
charismatic Matsuda truly lights up the screen. The same can be said of
Jeanette Aw. She and Tsuyoshi Ihara generate more tragically romantic
wistfulness as Masato’s parents seen in flashbacks than entire marathon of
Nicholas Sparks movies.
It
might be tempting to call Ramen Shop something
like Departures with better food, but
it happens to be more upbeat than the Oscar-winning gold standard of Japanese
tear-jerkers. Plus, the film’s consultant chef, Keisuke Takeda really put the
resulting Ramen-Bak Kut Teh hybrid dish on his restaurant’s menu, so you know
the food is legit. Sometimes, it is just nice to see a quiet film that is
completely free of cynicism—exactly like this one. Recommended for audiences of
foodie movies and ultra-accessible foreign films, Ramen Shop opens today (3/22) in New York, at the IFC Center.
