A group of young men at an Antarctic research station find themselves increasingly obsessed with food in 2009's Chef of the South Pole (Nankyokuryourinin, 南極料理人. Don't expect to learn too much about what they're researching; this is a movie for people who adore men, people who like watching men run around in their underwear and wear harmless, goofy expressions. It's a movie targeted at women, though I assume there are some gay men who might enjoy it as well. It maintains a restful pace and, although there are a few touches of pathos, it's mostly just a pleasant trip for the viewer to a sort of human zoo.
The guys come from various locations in Japan. It's an ensemble but the film is especially concerned with the chef, Nishimura Jun, played by Sakai Masato. He has a wife and daughter back home and keeps one of his daughter's baby teeth in a pouch around his neck.
Sakai clearly made the effort to convincingly play a professional chef and you can see no double is used for shots of him slicing fish, packing onigiri, or preparing dough for ramen. Watching him make ramen noodles from scratch was particularly fascinating.
When he tells the group that he has no soy beans for the Setsubun holiday, the spring holiday in which people typically throw soy beans at someone wearing a devil mask, he suggest they use peanuts instead. So they do; one of the men runs around in his underwear and a devil mask and they throw peanuts at him. Another time, the group takes a photo together outside in their underwear. In a later scene, one of the men runs around the station with only a hand towel clutched to his privates.
In an early scene, all the men are crowded together in the bathroom and for some reason the toilet stalls have very low doors that do not block the view of the occupant. One man is inside defecating and he repeatedly tells the others not to look. They keep looking. Why was the stall built like this? If the guy wants privacy, why doesn't he put up a curtain? Why does everyone want to watch him poop? Logic isn't the point here, this is for people who find these guys intrinsically adorable and like to see them adorably frustrated and embarrassed. Similarly, you won't find a lot of scientific accuracy. For some reason, no-one ever wears goggles when they go outside so their little glasses are perpetually crusted with frost.
I was not the target audience for this movie but I think a lot of people would find it perfectly satisfying.
Chef of the South Pole is available on Netflix and Amazon Prime in Japan.
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