Released in 1985, Juzo Itami's "Tampopo" was famously a flop in Japan, but a hit abroad, especially in the United States, where it became the second-highest-earning Japanese film ever. This "noodle Western" about a rough-hewn truck driver (Tsutomu Yamazaki) who helps a spunky widow (Nobuko Miyamoto) make her struggling ramen shop a success may have been inspired by Hollywood models, but its take on Japan's bubble-era (1980s) gurume (gourmet) boom was bitingly satirical and imaginatively unconventional in ways unique to Itami.