The critics I've read before where so "weird" I didn't know what exactly what to expect except a weird movie. I have not been disapointed at all
Director Ishii Katsuhito sign here his third movie and is quite well known in Japan as a music videos and commercials director. He has also worked with Quentin Tarantino on Kill Bill#1 for the animated sequence.
Ishii Katsuhito  is a fan of 3D & 2D animations and The Taste Of Tea hosts many sequences of 3D and even a 2 minutes sequence in the most pure japanimation style directed by Takeshi Koike, the director of segment "World Record" in The Animatrix.
The japanimation fans will even recognize Hideaki Neon Genesis Evangelion Anno playing in this movie an animation movies director
But now let's get back to the story...
The Taste Of Tea shows us the everyday goings-on of the Haruno family, a quintet (mom, dad, teenage son, little daughter and grandpa) living in a small countryside town north of Tokyo.
The grand-father (an artificially aged Tatsuya Gashuin) appears very eccentric but is only the tip of the iceberg of the quirks that run in the family. Â :D
The mother, Yoshiko (Satomi Tezuka), is attempting to return to her old job as a cartoon animator by making a hand-drawn short at the dinner table with the assistance of the grand-pa who occasionnaly serves as model for the amazing fighting positions and moves taken by the animated characters.
The father, Nobuo (Tomokazu Miura) is a hypnosis therapist who occasionally practices on his own family helping them to reach their very own private worlds which gives the audience some very psychedelic sequences
Hajime (Takahiro Sato), the son, appears first very disapointed to see his secret love moving to another city without having never known about how much he cared for her. Nevertheless he soon becomes  a vat of raging hormones after the arrival of a pretty new classmate (Anna Tsuchiya) who joins the Go club
Finally, the daughter Sachiko (Maya Banno) is bothered at inopportune moments by her own giant-sized double, who hangs around sitting on buildings, growing out from earth or even passing walls and stares at her.
This quintet is completed during part of the movie with the uncle Ayano (Tadanobu Asano), a sound engineer, resting in this house and walking alone with his spleen before going back to the city and his work.
Walking often out he meets some very weird characters from an exceptionnaly skilled yakusa at base-ball, a martial artist "dancing" all days, his former girlfriend, ...; and of course, not to be forgotten, the yakusa's ghost staring at him with a poo as an helmet
Many other characters appear like the other uncle, a famous mangaka, as eccentric as his father with whom he decides to try pop-music with an incredible music-video which has almost killed me Â
There is also a very funny sequence around "cos-play" (fans wearing mangas heroes costumes) which is a must see
The Taste Of Tea manages to mix many references of japanese popular culture and takes place in the japanese countryside, a place we are not used to see as foreign audience. An audience who is going from surprises to surprises at every single moment in a movie as funny as it is poetic and totally weird, imaginative and without any bareers  :)
I really invite you to no miss it if you have the opportunity to see it and gives it a well deserved 5/6 Â
Chevvie
