

Flavor of Happiness
2008-10-11 · 124 min · ★ 6.3
Yamashita Takako works in the food section of a department store. She pays frequent visits to a reputable local Chinese restaurant about opening an in-store branch. The owner of the restaurant, Wang Qingkuo from Shanghai, who does all the cooking by himself, gives Takako the brush-off. One day, however, Wang collapses due to overwork, and is left with partial paralysis. Hearing the rumor of the restaurant’s closure, Takako resigns from the department store and becomes an apprentice to Wang.
Trailers are previews, not full movies.
No authorized playback source configured. Use the legal watch options below.
Production details
- Directors
- Mitsuhiro Mihara
- Production companies
- Toei Video Company, Video Planning, Sony Music Associated Records Inc., Toei Company, dentsu, VAP, Yomiuri Telecasting Corporation
- Countries
- Japan
- Status
- Released
Top Cast
Miki NakataniYamashita Takako
Tatsuya FujiWang Qing Kuo
Kei TanakaTakahashi Akira
Kaoru YachigusaYuriko Nagata
Masahiro KomotoKazuyoshi Ueda
Shirō ShimomotoShiro Shima
Houka KinoshitaYoshio Nomura
Masato YamadaIchi Ishida
Sei HiraizumiNobuo MiyajimaTitle information and images are supplied by TMDb. Explore our discovery guide for advice on comparing metadata and legal viewing options.
Where to watch
Availability provided by JustWatch via TMDb. Offers can change. Provider links are listed on TMDb; full playback requires a separately authorized source.
Availability not listed for this country.
Seasons & episodes
Recommendations

A restaurant opens at midnight. Both the menu offerings and personality of the owner draw a series of flawed patrons including Tamako, whose boyfriend has passed away, live-in worker Michiru, and ruckus-raising Kenzo.

The master of a dorayaki pastry store hires a 76-year-old woman whose talents attract customers from all over. But she's hiding a troubling secret. Life's joys are found in the little details, and no matter what may be weighing you down, everyone loves a good pastry.

Masato is a young ramen chef in Japan. When he finds his late mother's journal after the sudden death of his emotionally distant father, he takes it with him to her native country, Singapore, hoping to piece together the story of his family and his life.

Through a series of flashbacks, four Chinese women born in America and their respective mothers born in feudal China explore their pasts.

A head chef balances multiple personal and professional crises at a popular restaurant in London.

An odyssey through time and memory, centered on a place in New Jersey where—from wilderness, and then, later, from a home—love, loss, struggle, hope and legacy play out between couples and families over generations.

Russ Millings has just been released from prison after serving 21 years for a 3rd strike conviction for possessing an ounce of marijuana. As he tries to adapt to a world he doesn’t recognize – including trying to learn how to use the internet – he finds an abandoned baby in a dumpster behind the fast food restaurant where he works as a dishwasher. Unsure of what to do, and caught between impulses of kindness and panic, Russ soon realizes this could be his chance at redemption.

Like millions of kids around the world, Santiago harbors the dream of being a professional footballer... However, living in the Barrios section of Los Angeles, he thinks it is only that—a dream. Until one day an extraordinary turn of events has him trying out for Premiership club Newcastle United.

When churlish mobster Albert Spica acquires an upscale French restaurant in London, he dines there nightly, effectively scaring off the clientele with his bad manners. His wife, Georgina, is especially disgusted by him, and soon begins an affair with regular guest Michael. Despite their best efforts to keep it secret, Spica learns about their trysts, and he plots a terrible revenge.

One unlucky evening, Louis Cropa, a part-time bookmaker, discovers that his restaurant has become a hotbed of conflicting characters. In addition to having to please a whiny food critic, Louis must fend off a hostile takeover from a pair of gangsters, to whom his sous-chef is in debt. Further, Louis has an argument with his son, the star chef, whose culinary creativity has brought success to the business.

Clara and her two sons escape from her abusive husband with little more than their car and plan to start over in New York. After the car towed away, the family meets Alice, who gets them into an emergency shelter. While stealing food at a Russian restaurant called ‘Winter Palace’, Clara meets Marc, who has been given the chance to help the old eatery regain its former glory. The ‘Winter Palace’ soon becomes a place of unexpected encounters between people who are all undergoing some sort of crisis and whom fate has now brought together.

An aimless young man who is scalping tickets, gambling and drinking, agrees to coach a Little League team from the Cabrini Green housing project in Chicago as a condition of getting a loan from a friend.

Toshio hires Yasaka to work in his workshop. But then this old acquaintance, who has just been released from prison, begins to meddle in Toshio's family life.

In a suburban landscape, the lives of several families interlace with loss, despair and personal crisis. Esther Gold has lost focus on all but caring for her comatose son, Paul, and neglects her daughter and husband. Lawyer Jim Train is devoted to his career, not his family. Helen Christianson wants to find a new spark in life, while Annette Jennings tries to rebuild hers.

A unique friendship develops when a little girl and her dying mother inherit a cook - Mr. Church. What begins as an arrangement that should only last six months, instead spans fifteen years.

A 10-year-old boy spends a summer in the country with a childless couple and a precocious girl.

A poor, struggling South Carolinian mother and daughter face painful choices with their resolve and pride. Bone, the eldest daughter, and Anney her tired mother, grow both closer and farther apart: Anney sees Glen as her last chance.

Joy lives a life filled with bad choices. At a young age, she marries and has a child–with an abusive thief who quickly ends up incarcerated. Left alone, she takes up with the guy's mate, another thief, who seems to give her some happiness but who also ends up locked up. She then takes up with a series of seedy types who offer nothing but momentary pleasure–if that.

94-year-old Eleanor Morgenstein tries to rebuild her life after the death of her best friend. As a result, she moves back to New York City after living in Florida for decades.

A 21-year-old girl is released from prison, only to deal with the neighborhood gossip about her and family conflicts. She decides to save one million yen, move to where no one knows her and keep repeating the process.
Similar titles

Swedish efficiency researchers come to Norway for a study of Norwegian men, to optimize their use of their kitchen. Folke Nilsson (Tomas Norström) is assigned to study the habits of Isak Bjørvik (Joachim Calmeyer). By the rules of the research institute, Folke has to sit on an umpire's chair in Isak's kitchen and observe him from there, but never talk to him. Isak stops using his kitchen and observes Folke through a hole in the ceiling instead. However, the two lonely men slowly overcome the initial post-war Norwegian-Swede distrust and become friends.

On a quiet street in Helsinki, Sachie has opened a diner featuring rice balls. For a month she has no customers. Then, in short order, she has her first customer, meets Midori, a gangly Japanese tourist, and invites her to stay with her.

A family meal that drags on and on, it's time for dessert. Melanie watches helplessly as yet another sexist and fatphobic discussion unfolds. But is this the last straw?

A deliciously romantic coming together of Gulrez “Gullu” Qadir a Hyderabadi shoe-sales girl disillusioned with love because of her encounters with dowry-seeking men; and Tariq “Taru” Haidar a Lucknawi cook who can charm anybody with the aroma and flavours of his biryani and kebabs.

With their relationship on the rocks, David and Emily move to Halifax to catch a break from the pandemic and their monotonous routine. Upon meeting Emily's best friend Delilah and her local friend Meg, the already shaky groundwork of their relationship starts to fracture.

Raul finally gets the courage to ask his co-worker, Rosa out on a date. When the day arrives, Raul is confronted by ICE officers and arrested for being undocumented. Meanwhile Rosa is waiting for him at his favorite restaurant only to never have Raul arrive.

When a Danish chef travels to Tuscany to sell his father's business, he meets a local woman who inspires him to rethink his approach to life and love.

One unlucky evening, Louis Cropa, a part-time bookmaker, discovers that his restaurant has become a hotbed of conflicting characters. In addition to having to please a whiny food critic, Louis must fend off a hostile takeover from a pair of gangsters, to whom his sous-chef is in debt. Further, Louis has an argument with his son, the star chef, whose culinary creativity has brought success to the business.

Meet Neslihan. A perfect cook, an expert on Turkish cuisine, strictly loyal to her husband, an impeccable house wife... and a serial killer.

"Charon" follows a restaurant owner (Jason Shidiskis) and his wife (Liesl Cruz) going through their daily lives while expecting a child when the unexpected occurs.

Bird droppings on a work shirt lead to extreme unintended consequences.

An anthology of three short films by Kim Jeong-in, Jung So-young, and Hwang Seul-gi. It uses food and people to capture the warmth of everyday life that everyone can relate to.

Manuel, a young Dominican chef, has the opportunity to fulfill his dream when a businesswoman asks him for a dish that will impress her. But, he has to deal with his inner voice that torments him in order to make it.

A law firm brings in its "fixer" to remedy the situation after a lawyer has a breakdown while representing a chemical company that he knows is guilty in a multi-billion dollar class action suit.

When a prostitute is found dead in a Los Angeles skyscraper occupied by a large Japanese corporation, detectives John Connor and Web Smith are called in to investigate. Although Connor has previous experience working in Japan, cultural differences make their progress difficult until a security disc showing the murder turns up. Close scrutiny proves the disc has been doctored, and the detectives realize they're dealing with a cover-up as well.

Vatel is the cook of Prince Condé. When the prince invites Louis XIV to hunt, he has to give lavish banquets in order to fall in his favour. But when Vatel falls in love with the king's mistress, love and duty conflict.

Cathy is a sous-chef wanting to open a restaurant. With financial difficulties, Cathy accepts a job at a shelter for young migrants. At first she hates the job then her passion for cuisine starts to change children's lives.

In southern France, a Franco-Arabic shipyard worker along with his partner's daughter pursues his dream of opening a restaurant.

Edgar works as a waiter in 'Het Westen', a restaurant. He is married and has a lover. His neighbors terrorize him with loud music and garbage. One day after he is mistreated by some customers he is sick of it all and goes to talk to his creator, the scenario writer.

Antoine Sforza, a thirty-year-old young man, left his village ten years before in order to start a new life in the big city, but now that his father, a traveling grocer, is in hospital after a stroke, he more or less reluctantly accepts to come back to replace him in his daily rounds.