For 81 years now, Tsukiji Market has served honourably as the 'kitchen of Japan', playing a key role in supporting the country's food culture and feeding sushi-hungry tourists flocking in to experience its hustle and bustle. Amid the furore surrounding the market's relocation, including delays in its move to Toyosu – originally scheduled for November 2016 – Tsukiji Wonderland, a documentary film centring on the market, opens in theatres across Japan on October 15.
Tsukiji Wonderland seeks to portray the true essence of Tsukiji, focusing on the interdependent relationship between the fishmongers and restaurateurs who frequent the market. One of the many talking heads featured in the film, food critic Masuhiro Yamamoto, memorably describes Tsukiji's wholesalers as having an intuitive ability to 'deliver ingredients to the kitchens at the optimum time', thus allowing 'the culinary artists to put their hearts into preparing the fish in the best possible way'.
Working together with the Tokyo Fish Market wholesales co-operative, director Naotaro Endo captures the different faces of the market throughout the various seasons, chronicling the quotidian rhythms of Tsukiji over the period of a year. Tsukiji Wonderland not only serves as a valuable record of life in Tsukiji, but is quite possibly the world-famous establishment's swan song on film.
For more about Tsukiji Fish Market, click here. Read more about the film here and watch the trailer below:
© 2016 Shochiku