The Taste of Tea · reception & legacy
2004 · Katsuhito Ishii
How The Taste of Tea has been received, argued over, and remembered.
The arc
It opened the Directors' Fortnight at Cannes in 2004 to warm but modest notice, then spent years as a hard-to-find import — before the streaming/Letterboxd era slowly turned it into one of the most beloved 'hidden gem' Japanese films of the 2000s.
What's debated
The perennial split is over its 143-minute amble: detractors call it meandering and shapeless, while devotees insist the unhurried drift IS the point.
Its footprint
The image of a giant girl looming silently over the countryside is the film's calling card — endlessly screenshot, posted, and used as shorthand for 'surreal Japanese cinema' online.
Where it stands
A cult comfort-movie on Letterboxd — the 'if you know, you know' recommendation that fans press on anyone who loved gentle, strange Japanese family films.