It’s always sad when a film you’ve waited to watch disappoints. It’s even worse when it bombs. Udon has been in our queue for near three months now, and now that we’ve finally seen it, we have another entry on our list of the worst films we’ve seen this year.

The basic story of Udon concerns a young man, Kosuke Matsui (Yusuke Santamaria ,Bayside Shakedown), who returns home to his native prefecture following a failed attempt at comedic stardom in the USA. Something of a dreamer, Kosuke always found his family’s Udon business to be a bit quaint for his tastes. Having turned his back on the family business in setting off on his journey towards bright lights and big city, his father’s reception of him is far less than stellar. Determined to prove he can make something of himself, Kosuke sets out and finds himself a job on the staff of a local magazine. But udon proves particularly hard to escape fr him. Instead of writing comedic articles, he finds himself covering the local udon scene from a journalistic, culinary adventurist’s perspective. His articles end up striking a chord with the magazine’s readership, setting off a full scale udon boom. As the magazine’s, and in turn udon’s popularity increases, Kosuke finds himself falling in love with the thick noodle treat. But, when the dust of hype clears, will Kosuke let his peace with udon lead to peace with his father, or will the lure of fame send him packing again?

Udon itself is sort of two films in one. One focusing on the father/son and pride in tradition dynamics, and the other the freak nature of fads and their oftentimes unforseen collateral costs. Sadly, neither of these are addressed in any fashion approaching plausibility or simple logicality, thus sacrificing even the most basic of emotional connections. Kosuke’s magazine idea is literally a hit before its udon issue even hits the shelf. Seriously, the moment it is brought into the store, the same guys who pooh-poohed it the previous weak are there salivating with anticipation. If the film spent any time showing Matsui and his crew promoting the issue beforehand this might not be so bad, but as it is, the sequence bordered on surreality.

But the feeling only intensifies. The udon craze grows and grows until it reaches the scope of massive pilgrimages. The little prefecture is not home to a handful of udon shops, but seeming thousands, all with groups of people lining out the door. Exactly what is so appealing about the udon to the flock isn’t really stated, other than the fact it is Japan’s “soul food.” Maybe the filmmakers were trying to capture that illogicality and curious zombification and singular focus that afflicts those succeptible to Beanie baby type fads, but rather than drive any such message home, they instead lose themselves in lengthy, unfunny, and cg-heavy Matrix and manga parodies.

And then there’s the problem of the Mtv editing. Near every trick is employed, from rapid fire jump cutting, to video overlays, to DePalma style split screens. The sheer amount of footage they must have shot to generate all these little blips of footage is absolutely astounding. And given that none of it helps further any sort of mood or meaning in the proceedings, it amounts to an even more astounding waste of money. And at times the editing seems downright careless. For example, one sequence shows a group of udon afficionados approaching Matsui’s udon shop and asking him what he is up to behind the shop’s closed doors, when not two minutes before the same group, in the same clothes, were shown inside the same shop, tasting and denouncing a test batch of his noodles.

Things slow down a bit in the film’s second half, once the craze dies down and Matsui must face the prospect of taking on his father’s business. I won’t get into the particulars of this, but I will state that given little to no interaction amongst the two characters in the earlier portion of the film, their interactions and motivations in this latter half ring resoundingly false. The same can be said for Kosuke’s love interest, Kyoko Miyagawa (Manami Konishi). The two also say nary a word to eachother, exchange harldy a gaze, and yet still manage to be presented as romantic interests in the film’s credits. Wait, I thought. When exactly did the necessary chemistry come into play?

That said, acting for the most part is fairly decent. Yusuke Santamaria does a decent job as the amiable Kosuke. He’s funny, quirky, and entertaining in exactly the same way the film isn’t. Japanese Carrot Top, too, is quite funny, while Kyoka Suzuki (A Cheerful Gang Turns the Earth), a particularly vanilla actress, musters up a surprisingly frustrating witch. Manami Konishi, on the other hand, was something of a robot. Her face has some rather inexplicable qualities I found deeply disturbing. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but maybe it’s the pitch black, Damien-grade soulless eyes, which seem somehow melted down the sides of her face, combined with the clueless and dumbfounded stance, as rigid with indecision as a deer in headlights. Yes, maybe that’s it.

Alas, I think I’ve gone on far too long about this terrible film. Udon was an absolute chore to sit through. At an hour and a half I found myself drifting, only to find I had yet another hour and fifteen minutes of displeasure ahead of me. You’ll probably see it released stateside eventually by some purveyor of fluff looking to cash in on another Tampopo, but don’t be their sucker. Udon is one film that deserves to be skipped at all costs.

Update: While this movie may not provide an Udon fix, Kris’s Curry Udon recipe surely will. Check it out here.

About the Author

Chris Nelson has been a film fanatic since age six. A former film and English major, he is now a Software Engineer and contract Technical Writer living in the Silicon Valley.