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Synopsis

Yasujiro Ozu’s first talkie, the uncommonly poignant The Only Son is among the Japanese director’s greatest works. In its simple story about a good-natured mother who gives up everything to ensure her son’s education and future, Ozu touches on universal themes of sacrifice, family, love, and disappointment. Spanning many years, The Only Son is a family portrait in miniature, shot and edited with its maker’s customary exquisite control. —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

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Cineastic

7Apr13

Even as Ozu's first talkie, this film perfectly consummates Ozu's style and themes. It is a harrowing film about growing pains & expectations, parental love & sacrifice, and self-actualisation, complemented by exquisite cinematography & mise en scene. It's undoubtedly one of Ozu's greatest work, and that's saying a lot for one of the greatest directors of all time.

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Judicial Joe

1Apr13

God bless you, Yasujiro Ozu. Your films have made my mother and I bond in ways that will never be forgotten as long as we live. Tonight we watched this on Hulu and the thematic elements - sacrificing for a son's education, being proud of your child's charity to others - registered more in 2013 Texas than they may have to your audiences in 1936 Japan. God bless you, my cinematic hero.

DT likes this

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Mikhael Tarigan

24Feb13

A film for every young man out there.

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Maxim Stolyarchuk

19Dec12

Just wanna give a shout-out to Jack Dishel.

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W184

Ozu, Warner Archive, "Alamar," Anti-Biopics

By David Hudson on July 13, 2010

"By 1936, the year of Yasujiro Ozu's first feature-length talkie, The Only Son, the mature filmmaker of late masterpieces like Tokyo

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The Only Son

By Adam Suraf on July 31, 2010
After working and sacrificing her entire adult life to send her precious child to Tokyo for advanced schooling, a poor mother joins her now grown son for a week to see how he turned out, in a film by…

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