Review | Ramen Teh film review: food and family take centre stage in Singaporean drama
- Eric Khoo’s film starts out like Crazy Rich Asians shot on a shoestring budget, taking a whistle-stop tour of Singapore without the in-your-face gaudiness
- Unfortunately he adds a weighty family drama that’s clumsily handled, but Mark Lee, as the bubbly uncle of a visiting ramen chef, almost saves the day
3/5 stars
The food of ethnically diverse Singapore is celebrated in this warm, sentimental tale of family roots and forgotten recipes by director Eric Khoo ( In the Room ).
Khoo’s film is a lip-smacking home-cooked food tour, his camera lingering over dishes, from bak kut teh to chilli crab, as it follows a visiting ramen chef (Takumi Saito) tracing his mother’s Chinese roots.
Following the death of his father (Tsuyoshi Ihara), Saito’s character, Masato, discovers a notebook left behind by his late mother (Jeanette Aw). Believing the pages full of Chinese script to be recipes, Masato closes his ramen restaurant and heads to Singapore.
Assisted by Japanese food blogger Miki (Seiko Matsuda), he tracks down his Uncle Wee (Mark Lee), who schools him in the secrets of Singaporean cuisine.
Up to this point, Ramen Teh unfolds like Crazy Rich Asians on a shoestring as Masato – and the audience – is taken on a whistle-stop tour of Singapore, but without the in-your-face gaudiness.