Tampopo

7.6

Tampopo is a celebration of the role of food in Japanese culture. Acclaimed director Juzo Itami's (The Funeral. A Taxing Woman) hit satire was dubbed the first "noodle western" for its delightful parody of American…

The Making of "Tampopo"

Documentary about the making of Juzo Itami’s film “Tampopo” (1985). (Source: Letterboxd)

Otomo Ryutaro

Otomo Ryutaro was a Japanese film and television actor most famous for his starring roles in jidaigeki. In 1936, he made his debut in movies with the film Aozura Roshi. His final appearance in the film was Tampopo directed by Juzo Itami in 1985. Otomo ended his life by leaping from the top of a building…

Nakamura Nobuo

Nakamura Nobuo was a Japanese actor, who made notable appearances in the films of Kurosawa Akira and Ozu Yasujiro in the 1950s and 1960s. Perhaps his most famous roles in the West were those of the callous deputy mayor in Kurosawa's Ikiru (1952), and the hairdresser's henpecked husband in Ozu's Tokyo…

Itami Juzo

Juzo Itami, born Yoshihiro Ikeuchi, was a Japanese actor, screenwriter and film director. He directed eleven films, all of which he wrote himself. The son of Mansaku Itami, prewar director of satiric jidai-geki, Jūzō worked initially as an actor, appearing regularly in Japan and occasionally in English-language…

Kato Kenso

Kato Kenso is a Japanese actor and talent born in Hiroshima Prefecture, Japan.

Fujita Toshiya

Fujita Toshiya, also known as Fujita Shigeya (藤田繁矢), was a Japanese film director, film actor, and screenwriter.

Takagi Hitoshi

Takagi Hitoshi was a Japanese actor and voice actor. He died at the age of 78 due to partial ischemic heart disease.

Yamazaki Tsutomu

Yamazaki Tsutomu is a Japanese actor born in Matsudo, Chiba Prefecture, Japan. He has been nominated for seven Japanese Academy Awards, winning Best Actor awards for the Juzo Itami comedies "The Funeral" and "A Taxing Woman", and the Best Supporting Actor awards for "Go and Departures". He also won…

Miyamoto Nobuko

She was born in Otaru, Hokkaidō, and raised in Nagoya. She was married to director Juzo Itami from 1969 until his death in 1997, and regularly starred in his films. She has been nominated for eight Best Actress Japanese Academy Awards, winning in 1988 for her role in A Taxing Woman.

Yakusho Koji

Yakusho Koji is a Japanese actor. In 1976, he saw a production of Maxim Gorky's The Lower Depths and was inspired, first to watch, and then later to take part in, as many plays as possible. In 1983, he landed the role of Oda Nobunaga in the year-long NHK drama Tokugawa Ieyasu and was catapulted to fame.…

Watanabe Ken

Ken Watanabe is a Japanese stage, film, and television actor. To English-speaking audiences, he is known for playing tragic hero characters, such as General Tadamichi Kuribayashi in Letters from Iwo Jima and Lord Katsumoto Moritsugu in The Last Samurai, for which he was nominated for the Academy Award…

Tanpopo no Hanasaku made

An orphan learns of his cancer

Asu no Hikari wo Tsukame

7.8

The story takes place at "Tanpopo Farm", situated on a hill overlooking the ocean. The place is a pre-release center to aid in the rehabilitation of society for the boys and girls who had been released from a reform…