If you loved Death of a Tea Master, try The Sea Is Watching
A bridge between a film you've already seen and one most people haven't. Here's what they share, and what the second one does that the first one doesn't.
What they share
Both films are directed by Kei Kumai, and they both carry the bittersweet, slow burn mood tags, and they sit in Drama territory. If that's the register that drew you to Death of a Tea Master, the second film will land in a comparable space — through a different lens.
bittersweetslow burn
What The Sea Is Watching is
Here's a film that apparently wants to be both a romance and a drama, and it succeeds at being neither. A brothel worker called O-Shin falls for a fugitive samurai she helps hide. It's the sort of film where you just know somebody will be staring forlornly out to sea at the end.

