A con man orders noodles and upends everything. Mamoru Oshii takes the smallest possible stage, a black market soba stand in post-war Tokyo, and uses it to ask what happens when you strip away everything but hunger and survival. The scam is just the frame. The real con is watching a master director pull philosophy out of a bowl of noodles, then vanish before you fully understand what he took from you.
Post-war Tokyo pulls itself from the ashes, and in the shadowy corners of the black market, a peculiar breed of con artist operates: the fast food grifters. The film traces the legends of these swindlers across different eras of modern Japan. Moongaze Ginji steps into a rickety soba stand just before closing, orders raw egg on his noodles, and quietly begins his scam. Years later, during the first protests against the Japan-US Security Treaty in 1960, rumors spread about Foxy Croquette O-Gin, a beautiful grifter who suddenly disappears. Crying Inumaru, a luckless wanderer, roams the back alleys during the economic boom. Cold Badger Masa's scandalous death makes the public aware that such grifters exist. Beefbowl Ushigoro brings down a major gyudon chain, and Hamburger Tetsu rocks the fast food industry. Rising and falling with the country's changing eating habits, these rebels leave their mark on the dark side of food culture in a comedy told through a string of colorful lives.
