Review of The Ramen Girl (2008) by Jason K — 11 Jun 2009

Dear God, why did I waste 90 minutes of my life watching this schlock? It is a collision of Asian and Western cinemas, and neither survives the crash.

It follows a tired formula in which Abby, a spoilt American, who follows her boyfriend to Japan, only to find that he is leaving her. She falls to pieces, but manages to pull it all together by working as an apprentice to a Ramen chef in Tokyo. By humbling herself, she find love, a profession and that Japanese perfection X-factor as epitomed by ninja, samurai and as it turns out Ramen chefs.

Brittany Murphy goes full "character actor" on this one, ramping up all her annoying traits until what you are left with is caricature rather than a character.

Just how removed this film is from reality is hammered home by the fact that she doesn't learn to speak Japanese and somehow the very proud Japanese accept this and change their ways to accommodate this - pure fiction, and bad fiction at that.

Do yourself a favour and skip this film and head straight to "Lost in Translation" instead.