The earliest film from Yasujiro Ozu to be released on DVD to date, this comedy-drama from the director’s late silent period is emblematic of his more famous films of the ’40’s and ’50’s, using a focused and immovable style to focus on family values and struggles within the middle class. Here we’re presented with a young father of two who loses his job, and Christmas bonus, just after his son was promised a new bicycle, so to support his growing family, and satisfy his bratty son (brats of course are always prevalent in Ozu), the proud man takes a lowly job at a restaurant from an old teacher, who proves kinder in old age than he did as an authority figure. Blending familiar tropes of the Japanese cinema of the day – student comedy, white-collar working man comedy, family melodrama – Ozu creates an environment where pride can only stand up so much in the face of a petulant son or sick daughter, laying the groundwork for three decades of films to come where money issues would give way to modernity, but the family is always front and center.