Food is sustenance, food is pleasure and, as Eric Khoo's nostalgia-drenched "Ramen Shop" reminds us, food is memory.
The last is not often seen in Japanese foodie movies, which tend to focus on the hero's arduous journey to mastery of a culinary art.
So when the film, which premiered at last year's Berlin International Film Festival, began with an emotionally distant father (Tsuyoshi Ihara) and dutiful adult son (Takumi Saito) making ramen together at the former's shop, I imagined yet another fraught drama about the older generation teaching the younger how to make the perfect bowl of noodles.
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