Review | The Last Recipe film review: food porn galore in Japanese melodrama by Yojiro Takita
Story of a chef tasked with recreating another chef’s meal from 80 years earlier, Oscar winning director’s film is gorgeously shot, even if he lingers too long over the food; a shame, then, that the chefs are such unsympathetic characters
3.5/5 stars
Based on a hit novel and directed by Oscar-winning filmmaker Yojiro Takita, The Last Recipe has all the ingredients to make for a satisfying cinematic feast. But the excessive running time – it lingers too long over the meticulous nature of cooking – and an overreliance on melodrama ultimately make this film hard to digest.
Split into two timelines that cut back and forth, the story focuses on two master chefs: Mitsuru Sasaki (pop singer Kazunari Ninomiya) and Naotaro Yamagata (Hidetoshi Nishijima). The former, living in the present day, has been tasked by a dying Chinese tycoon with recreating a mysterious meal crafted by the latter in 1930s Manchuria.
What begins as a trip to uncover the lost recipe book soon turns into a journey of self-discovery for Sasaki, who learns that he and Yamagata have a lot in common: specifically, they’re both temperamental pricks.
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Indeed, this is another of those films that asks its audience to cheer a selfish man – or in this case, men; people so singularly obsessed with their craft that they mistreat friends, family, and partners to the point of abuse. Of course there’s a neglected wife (Aoi Miyazaki), and she’ll die a tragic death too, par for the course with Japanese melodramas.