Featuring Jiro Ono of Sukiyabashi Jiro, a three-Michelin-star sushi restaurant in Tokyo
My review: 4/5 stars
If you like food porn, this is the movie for you. Macro shots of the sushi just fill the screen with their vibrant colors and varied textures. The way with slices of fish repose, glistening under a thin glaze of sauce.... it's sexy stuff. From the visual style alone, you can tell that the filmmaker loves good food.
Jiro clearly loves food too. His dedication to his craft is simply mind-boggling. His work ethic, and attention to detail, his drive to innovate and perfect - he puts even NYC workaholics to shame. The movie is a great character study, and provides interesting insight into Japanese culture. Not just Jiro himself, but his staff and his suppliers all pride themselves on being shokunin, the very best at what they do. And almost none of their knowledge comes from formal education - instead, it's built on decades of practical experience.
The rice dealer: [I'm paraphrasing] "The Grand Hyatt asked to buy the same rice. I said, only Jiro's apprentices can cook that rice. You can't cook that rice with just big talk. If Jiro says you can buy it, I will sell it to you." (At which point Jiro agrees that the particular rice he buys is very hard to cook, requiring a lot of pressure.)
[Note: The film picked up a North American distributor, Magnolia Pictures. In fact, it was the first sale at Tribeca this year. So hopefully it'll be publicly released soon!]
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