Meet Tiger Ji, director of Death and Ramen: the LA-based Hong Kong kid’s black comedy short stars Matt Jones of Breaking Bad fame and stand-up comedian Bobby Lee
Mentored by The Elephant Man’s Jonathan Sanger, Ji cites as inspiration Hong Kong actor Stephen Chow’s irreverent humour, Swedish director Ruben Östlund and the Ingmar Bergman classic The Seventh Seal
Tiger Ji is on his second bowl of noodles when he looks over at me across the crowded chaos of Bowrington Cooked Food Centre in Hong Kong. We’ve just crashed a random restaurant for an impromptu shoot, and ever the rebellious spirit, the 23-year-old director holds up a fish ball speared on a single chopstick, smiling like he’s up to no good. I motion to him that I’m pretty sure that’s not how you’re supposed to use chopsticks. But in front of the camera he commands attention, and looks like he’s having a great time – and a great meal – while directing his own shoot.
“My mum used to go to church in North Point, and I would have fish ball [noodle] soup right across the street every single morning,” Ji muses, in his white tank and trainers. Hong Kong-born but now Los Angeles-based, Ji carries an air of California cool, with the distinctly grittier edge that can only come from spending his youth in the 852. The whole shoot, perhaps like Ji’s formative years growing up in the city, feels like a fever dream.
“It was a little jarring [eating] with other people at the same table,” he says, looking back, “but it became natural really quickly. You’re joined by how good the noodles are, sharing this weird communion of noodles.”
“I always wanted to make a movie about noodles,” says Ji. “I grew up as an only kid with a single mum. Whenever we’d fight and really go at it, instead of apologising, she would make me noodles. And that was, in essence, her peace offering. It always spoke really deeply to me – that image of communicating love through food when words have failed us.
“Then the idea matured and became a philosophical answer to nihilism. In the face of depression, mortality and suffering on this Earth, a bowl of noodles can cure hopelessness that would arise from all these sad and harsh realities.”
Whether that premise sounds ridiculous or resonates, consider how Ji’s journey to today’s undisputed entertainment capital of the world starts with the nostalgia of his memories of Hong Kong and its own cinematic past. Much like his previous award-winning short, Wuhan Driver, which follows a struggling Chinese Uber driver in New York during the pandemic, Death and Ramen addresses that feeling of hopelessness through a distinctly Asian lens, and with an absurdist twist. Both were produced by Ji’s mentor, Jonathan Sanger, best known for the Academy Award-winning film The Elephant Man.
