Kritiken

Saccharine at times in its handling of familial conflict, the film initiates but ultimately glances off serious engagement with tough topics... Outside of the plot, Khoo’s direction shines in its painstaking attention to the movie’s true subject: food... Each moment is an ode to Singaporean and Japanese cuisine sure to leave an audience salivating.

As Masato, Takumi Saitoh is fun to watch and someone you root for from the very start. He has his cooking techniques down... The ending wraps up a little too nicely for my taste, but I would definitely want to give Ramen Shop multiple viewing.

While the first half of Ramen Shop dabbles in some familiar dynamics, Khoo’s loving depictions of the food that frame their story carry the film until it can get to a stronger back half, and the ending is as satisfying as a big bowl of ramen.

If you view things like camera placement, dialogue, and acting as more than mere seasoning for a story, you will almost certainly want to seek sustenance elsewhere. “Inexpert” was the word that kept coming to mind, rather than “careless,” and the difference between the two made the overall experience just pleasant enough for this particular palate.

Though the emotional terrain of the movie is fraught, the mise-en-scène is remarkably gentle... [The cast] is excellent, perfectly in sync with Khoo’s sensibility, though the ending of the film devolves into somewhat corny and predictable melodrama.

In keeping with Ramen Shop’s support of cultural cross-pollination, joining love of food with acceptance of history as prejudice’s breeding ground results in a movie that packs surprisingly authentic emotional power.

“Ramen Shop” believes that the healing power of food can satisfy our hunger for comfort in difficult times, and that should be filling enough for now.

[Ramen Shop] demonstrates the power of Instagrammable cuisine to spice up an otherwise straightforward, sentimental film... This gentle film doesn’t linger on horrors too long. It demands only your appetite.

If you can tolerate a little saccharine piano music and ethereal backlighting with your food porn, Ramen Shop is an appetizing little bite of multicultural foodie edutainment.

[The film] is mostly a very strong PSA for people to book a vacation in Singapore to eat all those meals... In that sense, Ramen Shop has its charms, but it’s a bit too lightweight to leave a lasting impact.

Khoo, a native Singaporean, is an excellent ambassador for his homeland’s cuisine, using the film to extol its variety and singularity. Would that he had summoned the same exuberance in celebrating this cuisine on the low-calorie narrative filler that seems to exist only to tide us over until the next on-screen meal.

[A] mouth-watering, sentiment-laden family film... [Though Ramen Shop] wanders dangerously close to becoming a sentimental Asian pudding at times, it is saved by its underlying theme of forgiveness and reconciliation between long-estranged family members,