Comfort Food
Who doesn’t want to soothe the aching soul with a little food porn?
The Solitary Gourmet
Director: Yutaka Matsushige • Writers: Yutaka Matsushige, Yoshihiro Taguchi, based on the manga by Masayuki Qusumi
Starring: Yutaka Matsushige, Yuki Uchida, Joe Odagiri, Hayato Isomura, Anne Watanabe
Japan • 1hr 54mins
Opens Hong Kong Mar 13 • I
Grade: B
At the very start of The Solitary Gourmet | 劇映画 孤独のグルメ food industry (I think) salaryman Goro Inogashira (Yutaka Matsushige) is on a flight to France to see the daughter of an old friend. He’s squeezed in a middle seat, and thanks to his food-obsessed ways first he can’t decide what he wants for his meal service, and then when the cart runs out of his choice he has to wait. We’ve all been there. Thing is Goro falls asleep and wakes up in Paris with a pair of “We didn’t want to disturb you” stickers on his seat and is absolutely famished. It’s a low-key funny sequence in which Matsushige re-introduces Goro to fans of the long-running TV Tokyo series of the same name, and gives newcomers a crash course on who this guy is through a combination of pensive voice-over and Matsushige’s hilariously constrained physical performance. The short answer is this is the dude you really don’t want to say, “What do you feel like?” to when it comes to dinner plans.
Based on Masayuki Qusumi’s 1995 to 2015 manga and the series that wrapped up its 10th season in 2023, the innovatively titled movie spin-off expands the modest 30-minute model to be a more narratively ambitious, globetrotting dramedy, the kind better to support two hours of Goro stopping in the street and getting a one-two-three, close-medium-long shot edit signalling his desire to find some grub. It was a hit at home in Japan early in 2025, probably due to Matsushige’s careful stewardship of the IP – he also co-wrote and directs – as well as his indefatigable glee at the prospect of a good nosh.
The food possibilities boggle
It must be said: No one does food porn quite like Asian television series creators do. Over on the likes of FX (The Bear) and Starz (Party Down) the restaurant is the milieu for workplace drama or psychological horrors for emotionally stunted people. The Jewel in the Palace (MBC, Korea), Antique (Fuji TV, Japan) and Miss Culinary (GMM, Thailand) have plenty of interpersonal and melodrama, intrigue and comedy yada yada, but the relentless focus on cooking and the resulting dishes makes them food porn too. And though it’s not focused on one city and dish the way the series is, The Solitary Gourmet is, make no mistake, food porn. And that’s okay.
Matsushige leans hard into Goro’s commitment to his meals, starting when he lands in Paris and has some time to kill before he meets up with what will become, essentially, a client in a mystery investigation, Chiaki (Anne Watanabe, Ken’s kid). He’s hungry, so it’s into a bistro for an onion soup and a plate of beef Bourguignon. Personally, his bites are too big; I’d want to make that shit last, but the scene also tips the film’s hat to its travelogue elements. Eventually, he finds out what Chiaki needs. Her elderly grandfather Ichiro (Sansho Shiomi) wants a childhood favourite one more time before he dies: Icchan soup. Off Goro heads to Ichiro’s hometown in the Goto Islands in search of the mysterious broth, which is followed by an accidental trip to South Korea and a stay at a food research station. That’s where he meets broken-hearted chef Shiho (Yuki Uchida), who leads him to his final stop at a ramen shop in Tokyo, owned by an equally broken-hearted noodle master (Joe Odagiri).
Word on the street is that Matsushige floated the idea of directing the film to Bong Joon-ho (!), who passed citing scheduling conflicts; no doubt he was deep in post on Mickey 17 and trying to stop Warner from gutting that. But Matsushige steers the ship just fine, never getting too fancy and letting the picaresque storytelling do its own thing. There’s no denying the film’s TV roots; it feels like three of four episodes stitched together, with a new location and new “guest star” each time. That’s kind of what we want from The Solitary Gourmet though. The stand-out guest is easily Yoo Jae-myung (Alienoid) as a Korean immigration officer that Goro makes wait while he finishes his hanjeongsik – Yoo’s deadpan is priceless – but the extended cameo by Japanese vet Kenichi Endo got an uproarious response from the audience.
The Solitary Gourmet is the definition of harmless, and under some circumstances that’s reason enough to riot. Harmless filmmaking? GtFOH. But given the world out there, a little harmless (and tasty looking) food porn, some gentle humour, the spectre of romance and an equally gentle leading man with nothing to prove beyond the ability to respect the character he’s been charged with ushering into another medium is enough. And Matsushige makes it hard not to like Goro in his bumbling, which fortunately never teeters into straight idiocy. That’s not hard, the guy’s a pro with a long CV – Hideo Nakata’s Ring, Yoichi Sai’s Blood and Bones, Pen-Ek Ratanaruang’s Last Life in the Universe, Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Cloud. But he’s probably recognised best for this sweet food nerd, and that’s okay too.