Umami-no Tabi

Umami is a 2022 French-Japanese film starring Gérard Depardieu as a French chef who travels to Japan to find a rival chef who once defeated him in a prestigious competition. It was written and directed by French director Slony Sow and filmed during the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in Hokkaido, Japan (February 2020) and the Loire region in France (June 2020) after physical production was halted in France in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 lockdown. Due to the closure of cinemas during the pandemic, the film's commercial theatrical release was delayed until February 2023. The film was shown in festivals and released worldwide in its original version of 103 minutes except in France where a shorter version (92 minutes) was reviewed and released.