Culinary drama whips up a delectable feast

In many ways, the culinary drama genre is uniquely Asian. In films, food has been a metaphor for social issues or the psychological state of a character for decades. Like Water for Chocolate, Babette's Feast and Big Night spring to mind. However, the long-running television series predicated on food seems to be uniquely Asian, especially seeing that scores and scores of food-centric dramas are produced in the region: Miss Culinary from Thailand, Midnight Diner from Japan, Jewel in the Palace from South Korea, to name just a few. Hence it is no surprise that Masayuki Qusumi's 1994-2015 manga comic Solitary Gourmet, received the series treatment, wrapping up its 10th season as The Solitary Gourmet on TV Tokyo in 2022.

Also unsurprising is a feature spinoff of the popular show. Its premise is simple. Grocery importer Goro Inogashira often finds himself in a tiny Japanese town on business and suddenly overcome with hunger. So he tools around town, figuring out what he is in the mood for. Once he is decided, Goro sits down to enjoy a (usually local) meal. The series episodes don't have titles. They are named for the dishes Goro eats and the towns they come from.

In a film that plays out like three or four of the series' 30-minute episodes strung together, Yutaka Matsushige reprises his role as Goro and also dons co-writer and director hats. This version of The Solitary Gourmet deviates from the pattern only in that it layers on a longer narrative, designed to sustain the film's nearly two-hour running time.

The story starts with Goro flying to Paris at the behest of an old friend's daughter, Chiaki (Anne Watanabe), who has asked for help with finding a special dish, or at least its ingredients, for her elderly grandfather, Ichiro (Sansei Shiomi). Ichiro grew up in a village in the Goto Islands, and wants to taste his beloved Icchan soup one last time before he dies. So begins Goro's mission No 1, which takes him to South Korea and Tokyo, on a treasure hunt as it were.

Fans of The Solitary Gourmet in all its iterations will be comforted by the inclusion of its amusing quirks - the signature leitmotif of Goro experiencing pangs of hunger appearing in the show's rapid close-medium-long shot construction, for example.

Making his directorial debut, Matsushige proves to be a reliable custodian of the property. He and co-writer Yoshihiro Taguchi cleave closely to the series' foodie roots while injecting the action with more substantial storytelling, considerably more comedy than the series ever had, and more emotional stakes, low as they may be.

The vague travelogue elements of the series have been retained in the film. When we catch up with Goro, he has just arrived in Paris and, having missed inflight meal service, stumbles into a bistro for a bowl of onion soup and a plate of beef Bourguignon. From then on, Matsushige the director has Goro encounter various people and meals on his journey, among them food researcher Shiho (Yuki Uchida), a Japanese woman in South Korea nursing a broken heart, a hungry South Korean immigration officer (Yoo Jae-myung, in one of the film's funniest performances), and a Tokyo ramen shop owner (Joe Odagiri) with a connection to Shiho.

The Solitary Gourmet is the epitome of harmless entertainment. It's inoffensive and has no interest in making big statements or political parables but earns a lot of good will thanks to Matsushige the actor's effortless charm and seemingly endless capacity to convey culinary excitement. His credits include the horror classic Ring, the moody Last Life in the Universe, and a dozen of cult director Takashi Miike's most notable films, but he remains most recognizable as Goro for a good reason.

Don't go into the cinema hungry.