Rikyu (1989) on Netflix

Plot summary

Sen no Rikyū is a master of the Japanese tea ceremony in the Sengoku period, a man given to aesthetics and to getting each detail right. As Oda Nobunaga's rule nears its end, Rikyū serves as the lord's tea master, and he stays in the post under Toyotomi Hideyoshi, the new ruler who unifies the country. The position gives him constant access to the most powerful man in Japan and, in theory, a way to sway policy, but he holds himself apart from politics and gives his attention to studying and teaching tea. Through the ceremony and through flower arrangements he draws his lord's mind toward a single bloom or a plain room and the shape of a cup. Society around him is changing violently, and he draws envy and misplaced suspicion.