The Flavour of Green Tea Over Rice U

Ozu’s The Flavour of Green Tea Over Rice was released the year before his career-defining masterpiece Tokyo Story (1953). Following the strained marriage of Taeko and Mokichi, it charts the pair’s obvious clashes: the wife is sophisticated and bored, her husband is kind and imbued with a small-town simplicity she doesn’t share. When their headstrong niece Setsuko comes to visit, she uses their seemingly unhappy union as an excuse to keep her from being tied to married life. An expertly crafted tale of family dynamics, generational attitudes and long-held secrets, The Flavour of Green Tea Over Rice is a wry, tender story of relationships in post-war Tokyo.