The Taste of Tea (2004)

The Taste of Tea is a 2004 Japanese movie written and directed by Katsuhito Ishii. It premiered at the Cannes Film Festival on May 13, 2004.

Movie info

Original title: 茶の味
Transliterated title: Cha no Aji
Release date: May 13, 2004
Directed by: Katsuhito Ishii
Written by: Katsuhito Ishii (screenplay)
Distributed by: The Klockworx
Rentrak

Region 1 NTSC DVD (English subtitles)
Label: New People Entertainment (US)
Out: Jul 13, 2007
Buy: ,
Region 2 NTSC DVD (English subtitles)
Label: TC Entertainment (Japan)
Out: Feb 25, 2005
Buy: YesAsia US, YesAsia Global, CDJapan

+ Show DVD & Blu-ray releases

Plot

The movie is a quirky slice of life comedy about the everyday activities of the Haruno family, with scenes of surreal fantasy mixed in as apparent day dreams. Each family member has their own personal struggles to go through and goals to work toward which keep them generally detached from the others, but in the end it’s the support of family that helps them muddle through it all and get by.

Maya Banno plays 8-year old Sachiko, who can’t seem to shake the gigantic version of herself that follows her wherever she goes, and somehow she feels like all her problems will be solved if she could just do a full flip on a horizontal bar near her house. Meanwhile her older brother Hajime (Takahiro Sato) is working through a massive crush on a girl named Aoi (Anna Tsuchiya) in his after school Go board game club.

The mother, Yoshiko (Satomi Tezuka), is gradually getting back into her work as an anime artist after years of being a housewife and the father Nobuo (Tomokazu Miura) is having a hard time dealing with the change. The uncle Ayano (Tadanobu Asano) is a music producer, but he’s really not sure why—however he does know it’s not to produce the avant garde musical stylings of grandfather Akira (Tatsuya Gashuin).

Featured Cast

Actor		Role
	Maya Banno	Sachiko Haruno, daughter
	Takahiro Sato	Hajime Haruno, son
	Tadanobu Asano	Ayano Haruno, uncle
	Satomi Tezuka	Yoshiko Haruno, mother
	Tatsuya Gashuin	Akira Todoroki, grandfather
	Tomokazu Miura	Nobuo Haruno, father
	Tomoko Nakajima	Akira Terako
	Ikki Todoroki	Himself
	Anna Tsuchiya	Aoi Suzuishi
	Saki Aibu	Hotaru
	Hideaki Anno	Kasugabe
	Ryo Kase	Rokutaro Hamadayama
	Rinko Kikuchi
	Tsuyoshi Kusanagi	Projectionist
	Kenichi Matsuyama	Young man in red t-shirt
	Shunichiro Miki
	Kenji Mizuhashi	Maki Hoshino
	Ryu Morioka
	Yoshiyuki Morishita
	Kaiji Moriyama	Dancer
	Keisuke Horibe	Man in noodle shop
	Yuka Nomura	Woman in noodle shop
	Yoshinori Okada	Omiya
	Daigaku Sekine	Detective
	Kotaro Shiga
	Issei Takahashi	Chairman of Go Club
	Machiko Ono	CM teacher
	Shinji Takeda	CM director
	Seiji Tanaka	CM director
	Yoji Tanaka
	Susumu Terajima	Tattooed man
	Emi Wakui	Narrator (voice)