Tokyo Dragon Chef is a crime/comedy/musical directed by Yoshihiro Nishimura (Yes, the guy who did films such as Tokyo Gore Police. I can’t believe it either.) and stars v-cinema legends Yasukaze Motomiya, Yoshiyuki Yamaguchi, Hitoshi Ozawa and Kazuyoshi Ozawa as ex-yakuza who open up rivaling ramen shops after the disbanding of their groups.
I’ve held this film off for a couple months, and I figured as I neared hitting the milestone of 30 films, I figured it was only fitting I put this as my 30th film of the year.
This film is a lot to take in. I spent all day processing it and I’m still processing it now, it’s just so insane and it gets more and more crazy the longer it goes on.
First off, this film is like 8 different genres at once. It goes from a ramen film, to a musical, to a crime film, to a sort of satire on YouTube, to…mukbang, to a low-budget action flick. And it’s not changing genres every second because it doesn’t know where to go, No. It knows exactly where to go and knows exactly when to drop a different genre on you just to keep you guessing which direction this film will go next.
And…it works? It doesn’t miss at any point, the music is really catchy and really good (coming from a guy who doesn’t like musicals), the crime sideplot doesn’t feel too shoehorned into the film, the action is actually kinda decent despite how low budget the film is, and it’s a really funny film. I’ve laughed so many times throughout the run-time both from the sheer absurdity of the film and the jokes they throw at you too, be it a visual gag or an actual joke.
I wish I lived in a world where Nishimura did films like this instead of his usual work of just, super gorey horror films, as Tokyo Dragon Chef proves he had the ability to make incredible comedy films.
The casting and characters are incredible and are all really memorable in their own way, from Ryu and Tatsu, to the Ozawa brothers (played by, well, the Ozawa brothers), to food youtubers and a ramen lover to even…
Tak Sakaguchi??? Who just sorta appears as a one off cameo and beefs with the Ozawas for a minute which I find really funny. And I recognized him almost immediately as I’ve been wanting to see one of his films for a while
.
But back to my previous point, most of the absurdity in this film works because instead of using vibrant and energetic people who are just as wacky as the film itslf, they use the most deadpan and serious yakuza actors they could’ve gotten.
Not to mention, all the weirdness in this film is treated completely normally by these characters, they very rarely question what’s going on and just roll with it and the film makes that perfectly clear in the first like, 10 minutes when Motomiya shows off his back tattoo of a goddess and it shows like hologram visions of specific events, and his buddy just acts like this is completely normal and it becomes a running gag of sorts throughout the film.
Mimi was my favorite side character, she’s a food youtuber/idol who is all but outright confirmed to be an alien. She eats like, 5 mountains of pork and noodles lke it’s nothing, and even if I didn’t like the eating scenes in the film I just couldn’t help but enjoy Mimi’s presence, especially when she starts eating mountains of food while being held hostage. Not to mention she looks really crazy too.
The action, like I said previously, is somehow not that bad, they do a couple spinning kicks and stuff to look cool and flashy, but for the most part the action just serves as another source of comedy.
You can tell how much randomness they were throwing into the film when you have ramen chefs deflecting bullets with noodle strainers and cleavers. NOODLE STRAINERS, AND CLEAVERS. TO DEFLECT BULLETS.
If you’ve been on the Yakuza subreddit you might know what I’m talking about since this fight floats around the game’s community, but when Ryu and one of the Ozawa’s fight, it’s just so over the top for such a low stakes fight.
I don’t want to spoil it, but seeing Ozawa go “Secret technique! Sprout scattering!” After getting his dagger in a ramen bowl is just so silly to me.
My only real gripe with this film is the inconsistency with the villain, Gizmo. He somehow wiped out two entire groups of yakuza with his thugs, but they get boxed up by four ramen chefs, a fortune teller, a ramen lover, and Mimi. Either Gizmo wiped out the most trash yakuza on the planet, or these are the best ramen chefs on the planet, or both.
But, in the end, I would highly recommend you watch this film. If you like crime comedy films, ramen, musicals, or even over the top wacky films I would highly recommend this film. It made it into my top 4 on Letterboxd, i love this film a lot and is one of the few films I wouldn’t mind giving a rewatch to.
I tried to not spoil much, but this is like the one film I couldn’t not spoil because it’s so insane and I wanted to give a sort of raw review where I just dropped all my feelings on this film uninterrupted.
That’s all for now, I don’t know when my next review will drop so you might not see me for a while, Love and Peace!
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