The BFI have announced the release of Ozu Yasujirō's The Flavour of Green Tea Over Rice [Ochazuke no aji], which is coming to Blu-ray and DVD in a Dual Format edition, and to stream or buy over iTunes and Amazon Prime. On BFI Player from 5 June 2020 within a collection of 25 Yasujirô Ozu films released on BFI Player’s Subscription service as part of JAPAN 2020, a major new BFI season launching this month.

Ozu Yasujirō'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 one of 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.

The Flavour of Green Tea Over Rice will be released on UK Dual Format (Blu-ray & DVD), iTunes and Amazon Prime on 18 May 2020 at the RRP of £19.99 for the disc edition.

Dual Format contents:

• 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