Of filming as a what of eating (or the contrary) Tampopo is a very good movie, good acting, good script, good filming, fluid editing... It is a movie about food, with a comical or satirical frame. Etc: read the other comments for more.What I want to add is that Tampopo, alone in movie history, is precisely like a wonderful dinner. Great food, great company, and of course the discussion goes here and there, the variety itself being part of the pleasure. The film is like this, wandering in wonderful food world. Food as knowledge, food as fuel, as decadence, as a conquest or a tour-de-force, as a seduction tool, as an adventure, food as the first and the ultimate, food as life itself. Food as a philosophy and as a culture. Of course, if you disagree that food is a major cultural item, or that the research of excellence in food stops at the first MacDonald's, forget about this movie: you'll find it quirky, unfunny and very foreign, and you'll be right. Definitely one of the 10 great movies in history, if you list includes Citizen Kane and maybe Monty Python's "The Meaning of Life".