The Ramen Girl

This film is about an American girl who uses a Ramen shop as her haven after being dumped by her boyfriend. There, she experiences and learns more than she unexpected to.

"The Ramen Girl" is actually enjoyable to watch. I particularly like the way that it treats Japanese culture with respect. This can be seen by not Americanising the Japanese characters, using plenty of Japanese language in the film and also using actors who actually speaks fluent Japanese. Hearing a Japanese ramen chef explaining the spirit of ramen is quite inspirational, as one could see so much dedication and respect for something seemingly insignificant. "The Ramen Girl" is more than just a romantic comedy or a "Lost in Translation" rip off. It is a good way to introduce Japanese culture, values and traditions to other cultures. I enjoyed "The Ramen Girl" a lot, and I hope it reaches a wider audience.

I knew nothing about this movie before watching it but within minutes I was hooked.

Brittany Murphy tugged at my heart's strings as she portrayed a girl who is left alone in Tokyo trying to find a purpose or reason to go on.

This movie does very well even though the Ramen Girl (Abby) doesn't understand what anyone is saying at first. You quickly pull for her to succeed in the battle of translation.

The Culture clash is entertaining and hilarious at times. The only downside I have (Don't worry, this isn't a spoiler) is just that I wished the ending would have been slightly different. Either way, I'm glad to have this pleasant surprise in movie collection.

If you have always wanted to visit Japan, or have any interest in Japanese culture, this will certainly tickle your fancy.

Hope you enjoy.

As one who has lived in Japan and has eaten REAL Ramen, I enjoyed this movie just from that perspective. However, I was touched on other levels as well.

There is a depth to this movie that sadly many viewers simply will not be able to comprehend. This is a movie that goes beyond the technicality or "head thinking" aspect of a craft and addresses the heart or "spirit" of doing something.

This is clearly a movie about redemption. It is a movie about relationships. And, it is a movie about cross-cultural understanding and communication.

Ramen Girl touched my heart, and I hope it will touch yours as well.

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

Strange thing about this movie is that it has a lot of things wrong with it, but it is still a good movie, because it has a lot of "charm". Not the kind of charm in a movie that is overly contrived, but an actual sincere charm - which is hard to find. Most credit goes to Brittany Murphy for the charm, because she is such a naturally, sweet girl that she just delivers that quality to the whole film. The first problem I would love to address is the Cover of the DVD/Poster/Ad, because it is really awful. It has a "reverse stereotype" of Brittany Murphy in a Kimono with hands clasped. This would be okay for a film that one would think is about a soft-porn, submissive female on Cinemax, but it is not - it's more in the line of Karate Kid, and Shall we Dance. The People who watch expecting to see some White girl in Japan in hot, sexy escapades will be disappointed, and the People who usually watch more cultural, art films would avoid it thinking it's just soft-porn, so this "Cover" just disappoints everyone. The Marketing Dept. should learn from the people who market Fast & the Furious, because those movies sucks big, but always pulls in the audience because people know what to expect.