Acclaimed director and headmaster of the Sogestsu school of flower arranging Hiroshi Teshigahara helms this elegant historical drama about tea master Sen no Rikyu. A Buddhist priest who talks of the beauty of a single flower or the shape of a hand holding a teacup, Rikyu (played by Rentaro Mikuni) not only perfected the art of the tea ceremony, but he was one of the primary arbiters of taste during his age. That era was a bloody one, culminating in the uniting of Japan's disparate kingdoms by a series of strong leaders. The most ambitious and the most extravagant was Toyotomi Hideyoshi (Tsutomu Yamazaki), who favored flashy displays of wealth as much as he did violent conquest. Hideyoshi thought of the tea ceremony not as an art but as a show of refinement and power. In 1587 he held a ten-day tea-drinking orgy in Kyoto and Osaka. Hideyoshi chose Rikyu to oversee it and soon the buffoonish, violent leader and the reserved master were engaged in a thinly veiled clash of wills. Rikyu eventually does teach Hideyoshi that beauty is found in the minute. Yet when Hideyoshi receives both guns and a globe from Portuguese missionaries, he is overwhelmed with Napoleonic visions. When Rikyu expresses his reservations about Hideyoshi's impending invasion of Korea and China, the potentate demands an apology. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide
Rikyu(利休,Rikyu?, 1989) is Hiroshi Teshigahara's film about the 16th century master of the Japanese tea ceremony, Sen no Rikyū. The film focuses on the late stages of life of Rikyū, during the highly turbulent Sengoku period of Feudal Japan. It starts near the end of Oda Nobunaga's reign, with Rikyū serving as tea master to Nobunaga, and continues into the Momoyama Period. Rikyū is portrayed as a man thoroughly dedicated to aesthetics and perfection, especially in relation to the art of tea. While serving as tea master to the new ruler Toyotomi Hideyoshi, Rikyū finds himself in a uniquely privileged position, with constant access to the powerful feudal lord and the theoretical ability to influence policy, yet he studiously avoids deep involvement in politics while attempting to focus his full attention to the study and teachings of the way of tea. To the extent that he expresses himself, he does so diplomatically, in a way to avoid disrupting the harmony of his relationship with Hideyoshi. Yet, as society is changed violently and radically around him, also finding himself the focus of jealousy and misdirected suspicions, Rikyū ultimately can not avoid confronting larger social issues. He is compelled to express an opinion on Hideyoshi's military plans. This one breach of his studied isolation from world affairs leads quickly to tragic consequences.
Director Teshigahara, himself a master and teacher of the Japanese traditional art of ikebana, brings the viewer into appreciation and deep sympathy for Rikyu's aesthetic idealism and his careful diplomatic efforts to avoid excessive entanglement in political affairs. The film itself is very studied in its aestheticism, and very expressive of the shocking force of life intruding into the guarded hermetic space of the artist/idealist.
