©2016

2 videodiscs (110, 109 min.) : sound, color ; 4 3/4 in.

Of all the seafaring nations, perhaps none has quite so close a relationship with seafood as Japan. Fish and shellfish forms what is considered the backbone of washoku, or Japanese cuisine. With an almost religious fervor, some of the country's best chefs come to Tokyo's Tsukiji neighborhood to visit the world's largest wholesale fish and seafood market to sample the latest tasty and exotic morsels, plucked from the sea that morning. Known as the "kitchen of Japan," the 80-year-old Tsukiji market offers more than 400 types of seafood, worth a total market price of about 1.5 billion yen, every day. In 2014, soon after it was announced that the cramped market would be moving to a larger site in Tokyo's Toyosu neighborhood, filmmaker Naotaro Endo began shooting to preserve this institution. For an entire year, documentary crews worked their way through the hundreds of overflowing stalls, focusing on the peak seasons for certain kinds of seafood, such as sanma (Pacific saury) in autumn and fugu (blowfish) in winter. Through interviews with vendors, plus commentary from food celebrities such as multi-Michelin-star chefs Jiro Ono and Rene Redzepi, Tsukiji Wonderland is a sumptuous feast for sushi lovers everywhere and a rare glimpse of Japan's ancient legacy before it's altered forever

Images / Video & Film

Japanese; English

April 07, 2022

Director/script, Naotaro Endo ; producers, Maiko Teshima, Kazuha Okuda, Kenichi Nakayama, Shinichiro Sakaguchi ; cinematography, Taro Kimura, Tojiro Kurita, Shinichi Tsunoda, Yuichiro Kobayashi, Goki Yoshida, Makoto Miki ; editing, Endo Naotaro ; music, Takayoshi Kido.

DVD; NTSC, region all ; single-sided, double-layer; MPEG-2 ; Dolby Digital stereo, 5.1 ch surround ; screen aspect ratio 16:9, letterboxd.

DB-0949 Shochiku