MUBI brings you a great new film every day.  Start your 7-day free trial today!
Watch a new film every day for $4.99.
Try MUBI for FREE.
 

Synopsis

The Kohayakawa family is thrown into distress when childlike father Manbei takes up with his old mistress, in one of Ozu’s most deftly modulated blendings of comedy and tragedy. —The Criterion Collection

Director

Original

Yasujirô Ozu

Yasujiro Ozu was born in the old Fukagawa district of Tokyo, to a fertilizer merchant, in 1903. In 1923, after a couple of years as an assistant teacher in rural Japan, Ozu was hired as assistant cameraman at the Shochiku Motion Picture Company. Early in his career, Ozu began to experiment with an idiosyncratic film style that ran contrary to the conventions of Japanese or Hollywood cinema of the day. He strove to reduce and simplify his film style; he cast such mainstays as the fade, the dissolve, and the pan from his cinematic palette. He shot solely from a low camera angle, using a 50mm lens, and he subordinated spatial continuity to visual aesthetics. Ozu directed his first film in 1927,The Sword of Penitence. In 1932, he began to hit his creative stride with the touching comedy I Was Born, But…, which was his first commercial success. During World War II, he made few films such as There Was a Father.

After the war, Ozu reached his creative peak and made some of his finest… read more

Wall

Displaying 4 of 17 wall posts.
Picture of killingtime

killingtime

23May13

I love that 100 yen scene! It’s funny and contemplative all at once. Akiko (Hara) in kimono and Noriko (Tsukasa) in modern dress talking about their life, both are beautiful. I also like the way Fumiko (played by that alluring Aratama) teases her childlike father with such anger that actually comes from affection.

Picture of Trolley Freak

Trolley Freak

23Jan13

Ozu's penultimate film and the last of only three he made away from Shochiku is one of his most visually beautiful. The story contrasts the older and younger generations in a large family, concentrating on the shenanigans and lust for life of the elderly head of the family and the proposed marriages of his daughter and widowed daughter-in-law. Emotions and intentions are starkly exposed in another fabulous Ozu film..

Picture of WhatsUpWill

WhatsUpWill

14Jan13

Strange ending for an Ozu film. I think one of the tracks in the film inspired the opening theme for Star Trek.

Picture of lucetteveen

lucetteveen

13Jan13

exquisite mise-en-scène

Related Films

Fans

Displaying 5 of 161 fans.

Articles

Our roundup of essays and articles on this film.
W184

Movie Poster of the Week: Ozu’s “Young Miss”

By Adrian Curry on December 2, 2011

A rare, surviving poster for a lost film: Ozu’s 1930 comedy Ojosan or Young Miss.

read article

Lists

Displaying 5 of 92 lists.

Reviews

Displaying 4 of 5

Experiment gone wrong

By Rohit on December 23, 2010

This movie was quite a strange experience for me. It almost felt like someone had tampered with an Ozu film and inserted some montages and contrasting background score to mess it up. If this was Ozu’s…  read review

La petite musique d'Ozu

By hubertg​uillaud on April 20, 2010

La petite musique d’Ozu – 08/03/2009

Ozu nous sert là encore un film raffiné, comme on s’y attache, qui nous parle d’un Japon disparu et des rapports familiaux inter-générationnels, de ce temps…  read review

Untitled

By Teddy Cheong on April 25, 2009

Compared to works such as Tokyo Story and Early Summer, this is a much more light-hearted offering from Ozu. His usual themes of generational differences, parent-child relations, and parent-child expectations…  read review

Untitled

By dope fiend willy on February 19, 2009

weak Ozu, Spoilers ahead:

(1961) End of Summer
Thanks to Criterion and their Eclipse line box set appropriately entitled “Late Ozu”, I have now seen all of Ozu’s ‘talkies’, “Early Spring”…  read review

Forum

Displaying 0 discussion topics.

DVD

Buy the DVD from The Criterion Collection.