Flavors of Youth

“Three different stories of youth set in different cities of China.”

Xiao Ming (Taito Ban) wants to taste again the food he ate as a child, back when the people around him were still close. The film is three stories set in three Chinese cities, and a bowl of noodles, a family, and a first love each carry someone back toward the years they've lost. Li Haoling and Yoshitaka Takeuchi draw the cities in crowded detail, so the steaming noodle bowl in each story is the one warm thing in the frame.