The Taste of Tea

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!

Note: I am your classic American teenager, I love violent movies. So naturally I was one to show reluctance when a friend suggested that we go see this movie at the NYC underground Asian film festival. Needless to say from my summary I was not disappointed.

The first thing to say is I can not think of any other movie that is anything like this movie and although I did insult myself before I have quite good taste in movie and by violence I was more or less leaning towards Pulp Fiction and Clockwork Orange. A taste of tea is simply about a family. Each character in the family has a little conflict, and as any movie the conflict attempts to be resolved as the movie goes on. They aren't eccentric conflicts at first glance, but as the movie continues the complexity grows. Their stories are not very intertwined except for the fact that it is all the same family. Nevertheless there are moments that want to bring you to tears.

Despite all this I would not call the movie sappy to the least bit. The movie is full of crazy imagery and at the same time is quite comical. To say the least its light hearted. But during countless scenes the audience would burst out in laughter.

To finish up, this movie is an absolute must see. Find it, buy it, rent it, watch it. In an age where it is almost impossible to find a good movie I am surprised that this movie did not surface long ago.

A truly unique vision of a whimsical, funny and gently-demented family. The actors do a wonderful job in fleshing out the quirky characters so that they are never cartoons.

The cinematography is fascinating-- sometimes simply beautiful; other times, bizarre. And sometimes the perspectives are distorted just enough so things take on a surreal appearance but you don't exactly know why.

This a character-driven story without a whole lot of plot. If you need a complex storyline, you may be bored, but if you like stories which reveal the inner life of a creative family, this is the film to see.

It must be me. It seems that only Japanese filmmakers are able to find that light world where everything seems incidental, but every motion has cosmic force. So very many of these succeed.

And again, we have a simple family who we observe, but the thing tickles our notions of self- performance and art. The "narrator" is a little girl who is haunted by a giant image of herself who watches in silence (as do we) until she is able to perform a trick. The father is a hypnotist, the mother a film animator. The uncle, who lives with them is a sound editor and aspiring performer.

Key events: a game of go as teen seduction; that boy running until unable to breathe as the most extreme joy, joy in not having but expecting. The only kind of real joy, exhausting.

Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.

You know, family films just aren't what they used to be, and what a wonderful notion that is. The only Ishii film that I've seen prior to The Taste of Tea is Shark Skin Man and Hip Peach Girl, and the maturity level of the director was almost unrecognizable.

At first everything in this film feels strangely secluded from the everyday world; the school, the house and the family members who seem extremely timid. The rarely displayed state of normality in family films, as supposed to the somewhat redundant tales of kindred conflicts that Ishii was able to capture, transcended in a refreshing and mesmerizing manner. The behavior of each family member was played out so naturally by the actors that I felt like I was watching a documentary. When the so called "unusual traits" of the family members resurfaces, the transformation is executed smoothly, without wandering off into another genre or changing the intended mood of the film.

I rarely get behind ensemble casts but I hope Ishii will maintain the relationship with these actors for his future projects. Asano as always breathes the ethereally inner distance, yet still feels humanely connected to the world and people in it. No matter how often the word 'subtle' is used to describe films, in reality I think it is a rare achievement. Ishii did a great job of taking his time to let us observe each family member as they go through their daily routines and as they attentively take time to watch over each other.

After seeing her in Kamikaze Girls, I was hoping to see and especially hear more from Anna Tsuchiya, who I think has a great future ahead of her.

I think every bit of detail obtained from the comments and even the poster should give you an idea about what type of film this is. It's comforting to know that in this day and age certain directors don't feel the financial and mainstream strain, and willingly dedicate their time and passion to making such wonderful films.