Synopsis

Based on a novel of the same name, THE LAST RECIPE gathers the best of Japanese cast and crew to realise a touching story spanning two different decades on the big screen. The novel is authored by Keiichi Tanaka, who helmed legendary television programme Iron Chef. The film is directed by Yojiro Takita, whose 2008 film Departures was the first Japanese production to win an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, and stars ARASHI’s Kazunari Ninomiya, who took home the Japanese Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in Nagasaki: Memories of My Son (2015).
Possessing the “Qilin Tongue”, Mitsuru Sasaki (Kazunari Ninomiya) has the unique ability to recreate any flavours he has tasted before from memory. After leaving the orphanage, Mitsuru sets up a fine dining restaurant with childhood friend Ken Yanagisawa (Go Ayano), but his business fails due to his extreme, perfectionist methods. To pay off his debts, he starts accepting offers to cook “last meals” for people at exorbitant prices. One day, he receives an offer and is flown to Beijing to meet Qingming Yang (Yoshi Oida), a renowned figure in the Chinese culinary world. Yang asks him to search for the missing the “Great Japanese Imperial Feast” recipe. Though sceptical, Mitsuru eventually agrees to the job after a lucrative offer, and begins to trace the footsteps of Naotaro Yamagata (Hidetoshi Nishijima), the Japanese Imperial Chef who created the recipe and who had disappeared along with it. As he meets one person after another who knew Naotaro, he arrives at an unexpected truth about both the chef and his recipe. Where is the recipe now? What was the secret that Naotaro had risked his life to hide in the recipe?

Movie Trailer