Tampopo

“The first Japanese Noodle Western.”

Goro (Tsutomu Yamazaki) is a truck driver who pulls up at a decrepit roadside ramen shop, where the widowed owner, Tampopo (Nobuko Miyamoto), begs him to teach her the art of making noodle soup. Jūzō Itami cuts away to short vignettes about people and their food, and the film is billed as the first "ramen Western." Goro and Tampopo start out as a coach and a student, and the work they share across the counter slowly makes them partners.