The Japanese aren’t the only ones who love their manga. The comic book stories have a huge following all over the world, including here in Hong Kong, and the ones that have been adapted into TV shows and movies have had successful runs both in Japan and overseas. One of them, “Kodoku no Gurume” (The Solitary Gourmet), is a youth-oriented manga series that first appeared on TV Tokyo back in 2012. Since then, the TV series has had 10 seasons where the show’s protagonist, Gorō Inogashira (Matsushige Yutaka/松重豐), is a travelling salesman who visits restaurants and street kiosks wherever he goes and samples the local specialties there. The show’s hook is the conversation Gorō has going on in his head as he slurps, chews and savours the food.

In this, the first movie adaptation which is also called THE SOLITARY GOURMET (why mess with existing IP?), Gorō receives a message from an old friend’s daughter who is living in Paris. Gorō flies there, ostensibly to deliver a painting, and the old man tells him that he’d like to taste a particular soup he had in his childhood one last time before he dies. Gorō agrees to help him out and he heads to the old man’s hometown near Nagasaki to try to find the right ingredients to make this unique soup. Not surprisingly, the quest isn’t easy and Gorō finds himself falling into all sorts of predicaments, even washing up on a beach in South Korea by accident. Along the way though, Gorō always manages to find restaurants serving delicious food, which he relishes with gusto.

You don’t have to have read any of the books or watched any of the TV shows to jump into this movie. It’s very straightforward right from the get-go. Though it doesn’t feature the food porn of JIRO DREAMS OF SUSHI or the two MIDNIGHT DINER films, THE SOLITARY GOURMET does a decent job of showing the various delicacies in their best light and explaining on the screen what each one of them is. Ably directed by the show’s star in his first time behind the camera, THE SOLITARY GOURMET gives fans of the series everything they could ask for including a cameo from Murata Takehiro/村田雄浩, who appeared in the TV series. In one scene, the story unabashedly mimics the classic Japanese foodie film from 1985, TAMPOPO/タンポポ, when Gorō and a few of his friends sample some ramen made by a down-on-his-luck restaurateur (played by Joe Odagiri/小田切讓, WE MADE A BEAUTIFUL BOUQUET). Thankfully, the scene is played straight up with none of the usual shrieks of “Oishiiiiii!” or “Sugoiii!” that is often heard in Japanese films whenever food is served. THE SOLITARY GOURMET also goes meta at one point when a filmmaker turns his camera onto Gorō to make a movie called, you guessed it, THE SOLITARY GOURMET. My audience howled with laughter at that point.

THE SOLITARY GOURMET opens in Hong Kong tomorrow (March 14th). It’s not mouth-wateringly brilliant but it is an enjoyable way to spend a couple hours. I guess you can say it’s “kyuuto” (キュート).

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