Yasujirô Ozu’s The Flavour of Green Tea Over Rice Coming On Blu-Ray
As part of JAPAN 2020, a major new BFI season launching this month, BFI are releasing Yasujirô Ozu’s The Flavour of Green Tea Over Rice Coming On Blu-Ray. Set for release later this month including The BFI 
Player from 5 June 2020 within a collection of 25 Yasujirô Ozu films released also part of the JAPAN 2020 Season.
Yasujirô Ozu’s films use minimalist storytelling and an emphasis on character to paint a portrait of family life and the relationships between the generations. Made the year before his career defining masterpiece Tokyo Story (which will be released on Blu-ray by the BFI on 15 June) The Flavour of Green Tea Over Rice is one of Yasujirô Ozu’s most beautiful domestic sagas, a subtly piercing portrait of a marriage coming quietly undone.
Secrets and deceptions strain the already tenuous relationship of a childless, middle aged couple, as the wife’s city bred sophistication clashes with the husband’s small town simplicity, and a generational sea change in the form of their headstrong, modern niece sweeps over their household. Ozu’s expert grasp of family dynamics receives one of its most spirited treatments, with a wry, tender humour and an expansiveness that moves the action from the home, to the baseball stadiums and the shops of post-war Tokyo.
BFI have released a clip to promote the Blu-Ray re-release…
Related: BFI Giving Toshio Matsumoto’s Funeral Parade For Roses Blu-Ray Release
Special features
- Re-mastered at 4K and presented in High Definition for the first time in the UK
- Feature-length audio commentary by critic and Asian-cinema expert Tony Rayns
- Alternative unrestored audio track
- The Mystery of Marriage (1932, 34 mins): educational filmmaker and pioneering female director Mary Field draws peculiar and poignant parallels between the mating rituals of humans, animals and mould in this eccentric, entertaining educational film
- The Good Housewife ‘In Her Kitchen’ (1949, 9 mins): the fourth wall is shattered in this imaginative public information film, filled with good advice for kitchen users – whether they have a refrigerator or not
- *** First pressing only*** Illustrated booklet with an extended archival essay by Tom Milne, notes on the special features and credits
JAPAN | 1952 | 116 MINUTES | BLACK & WHITE | 1.33:1 | JAPANESE WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES
Yasujirô Ozu’s The Flavour of Green Tea Over Rice Blu-ray/DVD release on 18 May 2020 and simultaneously available to stream or buy via iTunes and Amazon Prime.
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