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The Ramen Girl

According to the Ramen Blog, this movie was filmed back in 2006 but has seen its delay released and might end up going straight to DVD:

An American woman (Brittany Murphy) is stranded in Tokyo after breaking up with her boyfriend. Searching for direction in life, she trains to be a ramen noodle chef under a tyrannical Japanese master…

The Ramen Girl looks like it will be:

33 comments - What do you think? Posted by James - August 4, 2008 at 7:42 am

Categories: Foreigners in Japan Tags: japan, ramen

モルヒネ

This looks pretty lame. Is that Asobi Seksu in the background?

Richard

Yeah, they were playing “Thursday” in the background towards the end. That’s the best thing about the trailer.

I think I’ll skip this movie and watch “Tampopo” again.

sireB

it’s not a coincidence that brit murphy looks like gwen stefani here…
bakumatsu

this looks beyond bad
http://www.victorymanual.com Alex

I didn’t know Brittany Murphy did satire!
TofuUnion

” a tyrannical Japanese ramen noodle chef master. ”

When the master says ” spirit “, I guess it’s about the deep dedication of the trainee what was actually asked. But for the American audiences it looks like a irrational attitude. This can be frustrating for them to watch the movie.
edwardhasnewgoggles

haha…oh lordy.
WM

Looks like a dispirited remake of “Tampopo”. Pass
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http://d4emixtape.mevio.com/ D4E

The straight to DVD thing is a bit of a worry, but yay for Asobi Seksu.
http://www.hormel.com VonSkippy

Must be nice to be able to save all that time and judge a WHOLE movie by a few minutes of trailer. You guys must be super efficient in real life. Me, I actually have TO WATCH THE MOVIE before I can decide if it was good or not.

http://eleclutier.blogspot.com Elec

That’s what trailers help you do: judge a WHOLE movie by in a few minutes.

I think you’re doing it wrong. Or you just really like movies!

Gojira

Trailers do no such thing. At best they’ll convince you to not see a movie. Trailers these days make every movie look like crap.

http://www.victorymanual.com Alex

I disagree, VonSkippy.

A book is supposed to capture the audience within the first few lines. A trailer is supposed to do that in a minute and a half (or less).

Trailers are supposed to give you an idea of what the movie will be about, and typically show scenes that represent the movie as a whole.

Advertisements for The Matrix went against the grain and ended up being successful by piquing the imagination of movie-goers by presenting them with an enigma in a minimalist fashion.

Benjamin Button presents the audience with a montage of images and very little dialogue, which is also a successful technique and emotionally captivating.

What they showed in this trailer was a lousy attempt at immitating formerly successful films and capitalizing on trends.

Supercoolmanchu

I agree and disagree. That’s what movie trailers “should” be. It’s a well known fact movie trailers are oftentimes fabricated by the studio well before the film is even finished shooting. So what happens is we have a team of clueless studio folks (not the director or writer of the film) who obviously have never seen the movie collecting a bunch of unfinished dailies trying to create a “perfect” preview of a movie they think the audience would love to see. It’s rather embarassing how often they get it wrong.

The over-dramatic music used in trailers more often than not doesn’t even exist in the actual film, and some “deleted/edited” scenes sometimes even find their way. And don’t even get me started on the lame voice-overs that tend to say the exact same things for every damn movie. Same idea with movie posters. Even video/dvd covers sometimes get it wrong months after a movie’s been released.

I’ve stopped relying on studio advertising years ago. Ramen Girl may very well be an entertaining movie.

Eddie

Hahaha, couldn’t agree more.

morningstar

Why use a american for this movie? How did they communicate when one only speak Japanese and she only spoke English? I don’t get the reason. The story and the plot is not very good.
Supercoolmanchu

You can’t go wrong with Nishida Toshiyuki. Honestly. Not quite Jack Lemmon of Japan but damn close. A genius of his craft, and there isn’t a Japanese soul who doesn’t love him and his acting.

The reason why movies like this go straight to DVD isn’t necessary because it’s a horrible movie. It’s the big distributors that ignore it that tend to think movie like Gigli will attract a larger audience than a film with a B-list actress with bunch of “foreign asians” no one’s ever heard of.

Lost In Translation meets Tampopo? Probably. I’ll give it a shot. I’m just glad they decided to use real Japanese actors in the film – especially one so respected in Japan like Nishida.

cheezewiz

>You can’t go wrong with Nishida Toshiyuki

I’m mostly just sorry that he got stuck in this movie.

dhlt25

Anyone think it’s a stupid idea to put basically the whole plot of the movie(a girl came to japan with her boyfriend and got dumped, she then came crying to a ramen shop, after eat a bolw of noddle she felt better and wanted to learn how to make ramen blah blah blah) in the trailer?
TenSigh

I actually think it looks entertaining. I like the fact that the Japanese lead actor is actually speaking Japanese! I hate it when they have a Japanese actor speaking English. I also like that Britney Murphy thinks “Goji” means “high five”. Even those who DON’T speak Japanese will probably laugh at this.

Sure, the story looks corny. But it looks a little less cliche than a lot of other “Americans go to Japan and get blown away by how weird Japan is” movies.
Dragon

Would y’all have been more accepting if it were a haole guy instead of a haole girl? Haole guy goes to the orient, major culture-clash, karate master takes him as student and he ends up banging the master’s daughter…you know the routine.

This reversal of cliche looks refreshing. Appears as though she finds herself a Japanese boyfriend, too. Nice!

I think I’ll take my haole girlfriend to watch it and show her that the media DOES in fact accept our type of coupling.

For our sake (‘cuz I adore my all-American, apple-pie honey), I hope they make more movies like this…y’know…to balance it out a bit?

http://www.victorymanual.com Alex

“Would y’all have been more accepting if it were a haole guy instead of a haole girl?”

No. Your argument is moot.

Josh

I liked it the first time when it was called Tampopo
Josh

This movie could be more realistic and have Brit Murphy work at a hostess club. I wonder how the Asian American community is going to react. Hopefully not as dumb as they did when Lost in Translation.

Buster

Asian Americans… you mean the Chinese or the Koreans? I hate that term

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http://www.twinkiebeyond.com Twinkie Beyond

“You my successor.” – Why even bother paying now?
sade

i can see being inspired by tampopo, but this is not the way to go
http://chirimotsumoreba.net Jordan

Hahaha. Oh wow. I can’t believe how incredibly self-indulgent Hollywood is. This is obviously a “Hey! Lets make a second “Lost in Translation” type film!” moment.

Spare us. I beg you.
GregInVancouver

It’s been done and not as Tampopo which was inspired. The ultimate flawed-gaijin-comes-to-Japan, learns-the-art-of-a particular-part-of-Japanese-culture-and-is-redeemed movie has to be:

Kamataki
http://alecinjapan.com Alec

This actually looks interesting to me. Maybe cliched in places, but generally quite interesting and I have to say I’m also a fan of Brittany Murphy. But most of all it looks like she’ll have a Japanese love interest, which will be great because Asian males are rarely featured as love interests.

The Ramen Girl

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