Ask This of Rikyu

Sen no Rikyu, the son of a fishmonger, studies tea and in time becomes the man who gave the Japanese tea ceremony the form it has today. His aesthetic, built on plainness, draws the attention of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, the most powerful man in the country, and Rikyu becomes one of his closest advisers. But the two cannot agree on what beauty is, and when the conflict between them grows Hideyoshi orders him to take his own life. Through flashbacks the film also tells of a love from Rikyu’s youth that shaped his sense of beauty. Mitsutoshi Tanaka’s hundred and twenty four minute Japanese film was adapted from a novel by Kenichi Yamamoto; Ebizo Ichikawa plays Rikyu and Nao Omori plays Hideyoshi. It was completed in 2013 and won the award for best artistic contribution at Montreal.