Ramen Shop

Masato works at a ramen shop in Japan. His father owns it and the two barely speak. The man dies suddenly. Clearing his things, Masato finds his mother's notebook; she was Singaporean and died years ago. There are recipes and notes in it. Masato goes to Singapore. He looks for his mother's family and finds his uncle. His grandmother is alive but refuses to see him; she never accepted her daughter marrying a Japanese man. Masato starts working in the kitchen and learns to make bak kut teh. Eric Khoo directs. Takumi Saitoh plays Masato; Seiko Matsuda, Jeanette Aw and Tsuyoshi Ihara are in the cast. It is a Singaporean and Japanese co-production. The war stands behind the narrative; the grandmother's refusal rests on the Japanese occupation and the film says so directly. The production was prepared for the anniversary of diplomatic relations between Singapore and Japan. The two dishes at its centre are not set against each other; at the end the film builds a recipe joining them. The cooking was filmed in detail; the stages of preparation are shown in full. The matter it treats is forgiveness; the film builds it through food rather than talk. Its limit is structure; the conflict is low, the resolution easy and the emotional turns unprepared. Another limit is register; the narrative comes close at times to the lightness of a promotional film. Who it is for: viewers who like narratives grounded in cooking and Asian family drama. Who it is not for: it is predictable, the conflict softened, and the historical context shallow.