Tea Fight (2008)

Just finished this movie! I'm a little surprised that this movie doesn't have that many viewers, especially since Toda Erika is the female lead...But maybe there aren't many viewers for a good reason.

Story: I think I'll clarify the plot a little, since the synopsis available here and on DramaWiki don't say much. A long time ago, the Male Black Gold Tea Clan was provoked by a Japanese man and the MBGTC went and picked a fight with the Female Black Gold Tea Clan (a "tea battle", so to speak). Things happened, the Yagi family is henceforth cursed forevers for causing chaos, and the curse can only be broken if a Yagi descendent uses the Female Black Gold Tea to defeat the Male Black Gold Tea Clan in a tea battle. Toda Erika is this descendent, as she decides to go to Taiwan from Japan to find a way to break the curse.

Now my thoughts on the story--It was rather creative, though as a person who studied tea in college, the inaccuracies were pretty off-putting. For viewers who have little/no background in tea, this won't be a big problem, just enjoy the show. :) Unfortunately the execution of this movie was extremely poor. The plot was choppy and therefore cryptic, and it really took effort to keep track of what was happening. There wasn't a clear flow of ideas, and this, I believe, is this film's greatest fail point.

The humor that broke in between the serious moments were rather precious though. :)

Acting/Cast: The cast was chosen pretty well, I believe. This movie was a collaboration between Japan and Taiwan, so there are actors and actresses from Japan, Taiwan, and Hong Kong (apparently). RuHua's actress and the actor who played Toda Erika's father were two of the weakest on the cast (the latter being worse than the former). Perhaps it was the way their character was written, or the way they executed it, but I didn't buy it.

Music: I wish they had used more traditional Eastern-style music, as it is a movie about tea, after all. The music had pretty large disconnect with the film as a whole, and wasn't particularly good from a standalone angle either.

Rewatch Value: Low...low...low. Maybe, a long time from now, I'll skim through the funny parts.

Overall: The film's saving grace is it's humor, and nearly everything else isn't worth a second glance. Also, half the movie is in Mandarin and the other half is in Japanese, so it definitely helps if you have some knowledge of either one of them. The subtitles aren't grammatically correct, and don't have the most accurate of translations (so you might lose out on some humor, I suppose), but there should be no problem understanding the general premise.

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