The Taste of Tea (2004)

Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Very disappointing...

Fresh and Exciting

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

I tracked this movie down after watching Survive Style Five - which I discovered by accident. Why these films aren't more popular is beyond me. Certainly in New Zealand, they were very hard to find - but well worth it. Katshuhito Ishii is a genius - as a writer, a director and editor. His mind obviously works on a different plane. Often his stories seem completely random but as things progress, you find they knit together to form a complete story. His work is like nothing I've seen in Western cinema, it feels completely fresh, you never know what will happen next. The characters can be quite wild, but they all have elements you can empathize with. The artdirection also swings from everyday to insane. And somehow it all comes together to form a totally entertaining, complete whole. While some scenes are surreal (to say the least) there's always a humanistic element and interest. If you want something different, if you're tired of the formulaic garbage the Hollywood marketing machine churns out, try Taste of Tea or Survive Style. They put a new spin on real emotion. They're definitely worth tracking down.

Cha no aji is a great Japanese film. In trying to answer a friend's question "What does it resemble?", All I thought of was "Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain" and Haruki Murakami's two superb and fantastic works: "Super frog saves Tokyo" short story and his novel "Dance, dance, dance".This film is more about sensations rather than following a plot. And what makes it so interesting and powerful is that the exploring of those sensations have to do more with the viewer's than with those shown by the characters.Original, imaginative, funny, silent, and insightful. As the title suggests, you may as well try to watch it enjoying the taste of tea.

Warning: it may contain a very minor spoiler.In some ways, "The Taste of Tea" is the perfect movie for our times. Emptiness disguised as true meaning. Gimmicks instead of true art. Lack of mastery of cinematographic language, among many other peccadillos, make this movie, in my eyes, nearly unbearable to see.To begin with, why spend so much money to express so little? Why not give that money away to needy populations in Africa, Pakistan? My belief is that art is dead and buried in our times. This movie is living proof of that. How I miss the true artists of the form, such as Fellini, Antonioni, Pasolini, Chaplin, Godard, Agnès Varda (for her "Le Bonheur"), Reiner Werner Fassbinder (When is Berlin Alexanderplatz going to be out on DVD?), Bergman!! The few exceptions you find from times to times are there only to reinforce the rule...Just to give a small example of how clumsy the director is: there is a lyrical scene, the only worth something in the whole film, when the family discovers some books drawn by the patriarch. A good director wouldn't show the content of the first books, but instead construct an emotional crescendo only with the actors' faces and small details, and finally reveal the content of the last book, where the audience would be startled by the revelation, while, at the same time, would be left wondering about the previous ones.But the director shows all the books in detail. Some of them two times... For God's sake! Even sensitivity has to be spelled-out these days! Much like American movies when they turn up the music when they want an emotional effect! Using the same technique, I'll explain further: the director shows us a scene with an emotional impact, a book, with a trick. Got moved by it? Got it? No? Here he goes again, showing a second book... Not yet? Here's a third... And a fourth!! Frankly!!OK, maybe it's just me... Many people raved about this film, right here... I may be wrong. But if I could offer the director a little piece of advice, I would say: you have potential, man. Now go see Berlin Alexanderplatz and learn.

Really fantastic! Ishii offers us a great moment of dream, with humor, absurdity and poetry. Some kind of Non Identified Movie that you quite don't see any more. Everything is built around a little girl getting exhausted by her giant imaginary double. She has a manga-designer mother, a reserved father, a fist-in-love brother, a nut grandfather and a mysterious uncle. This delirious and particular family will follow its path through more than two hours of slow poetry, giving the audience a wonderful time. Don't miss it if you have any chance of watching it, you'll be dreaming in a theater!