An Autumn Afternoon (1962)

AKA Sanma no aji

Director:
Yasujirô Ozu

Writers:
Kôgo Noda
Yasujirô Ozu

 

Shuhei Hirayama (Chishu Ryu) is an aging widower with a married eldest son, Koichi (Keiji Sada), and two unmarried children – a 24-year-old daughter Michiko (Shima Iwashita) and a younger son Kazuo (Shinichirô Mikami). Since marriage Koichi has shifted out with his wife, leaving Kazuo and Hirayama in Michiko's care.

Hirayama and his fellow classmates Kawai (Nobuo Nakamura) and Horie (Ryuji Kita) go to a class reunion where one of their teachers, Sakuma (Eijiro Tono), nicknamed the "Gourd", is in attendance. The friends tease Horie who has married a much younger wife. They reminisce about the past and Sakuma has too much to drink, and Kawai and Hirayama have to bring him home. They meet his spinster daughter Tomoko (Haruko Sugimura), who has missed the chance to marry when young, and is now too old to marry.

Koichi borrows 50,000 yen from his father to buy a refrigerator, but plans to use the excess money to buy second-hand golf clubs. His wife Akiko (Mariko Okada) is in disagreement, but finally relents. However, she decides ill-temperedly to use some of this extra money to buy for herself a white leather purse as well.

Sakuma tells his former pupils that it is owing to his own selfishness that his daughter is now an old spinster. Troubled by Sakuma's daughter's example, Hirayama decides on an arranged marriage for Michiko. He asks Koichi if Koichi's colleague Miura (Teruo Yoshida), whom Michiko is fond of, is interested in Michiko. Unfortunately, Miura is already engaged. Koichi and Hirayama break the news to a visibly upset Michiko, and later ask her if she is willing to go for a matchmaking session with a candidate Kawai has selected. Michiko agrees.

In one of the ellipses Ozu is famous for, the film forwards to Michiko's wedding day. (Michiko clearly has agreed to marry, though her bridegroom is never shown.) Michiko prepares to wed in a traditional wedding kimono. (The actual ceremony is never shown.) Hirayama goes to a bar to celebrate her wedding afterwards and ends up drunk. When he returns, Koichi and his wife go off, leaving behind Kazuo who duly goes to bed, and a melancholic Hirayama sitting in the middle of the night.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056444/

Early Spring (1956)

AKA Soshun

Director:
Yasujirô Ozu

Writers:
Kôgo Noda
Yasujirô Ozu

The film starts on a typical working day in metropolitan Tokyo: office worker Shoji Sugiyama (Ryō Ikebe) wakes up to prepare to commute to work, attended to by his wife, Masako (Chikage Awashima). The couple is childless but used to have a young son who died years ago of an illness.

During a hiking trip with friends, Shoji spends moments alone on a hitchhiked lorry with a fellow worker, typist Kaneko (Keiko Kishi), nicknamed "Goldfish" for her large eyes. After the trip Kaneko makes advances at Shoji. The two has an affair. Masako suspects something is amiss behind her back but says nothing, even when Shoji spends extra time with Kaneko, his war comrades and a dying friend. The two becomes progressively estranged.

The friends too suspect something is going on between Shoji and Kaneko and finally confronts Kaneko during a gathering, advising her not to come between a married couple. Aggrieved, Kaneko goes to visit Shoji late in the night. The affair finally gets disclosed, and Masako and Shoji have a falling-out. Masako is angry enough with Shoji to leave for her mother's home the next morning.

Shoji accepts a job to go to Mitsuishi, at Okayama Prefecture, an out-of-the-way provincial town. Kaneko is upset that he is leaving but later accepts it. Meanwhile, Shoji begins to regret his affair and tries to bring his wife home, but Masako only goes back after he has left for Mitsuishi. The couple meet at Mitshuishi, where they promise to forget everything before and strive for marital happiness.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0049784/

Tokyo Twilight (1957)

AKA Tôkyô boshoku

Director:
Yasujirô Ozu

Writers:
Kôgo Noda
Yasujirô Ozu

Akiko Sugiyama (Ineko Arima) is a young college graduate girl learning English shorthand. Her elder sister Takako (Setsuko Hara), running away from an unhappy marriage, has returned home to stay with Akiko and their father Shukichi (Chishu Ryu) in Tokyo, together with her toddler girl. Akiko has a relationship with her college boyfriend Kenji, which results in an unwanted pregnancy. Later, Akiko has an abortion on learning her boyfriend is avoiding her.

While going to a mahjong parlour to look for Kenji, Akiko comes across its proprietress Kisako (Isuzu Yamada), who seems to know a lot about her family. Back at home, Takako hears about Kisako from Akiko, and pieces together the fact that she is their long-lost mother. Takako visits the parlour to ask Kisako not to reveal to Akiko who she really is – but the plan backfires. Akiko learns of her visit and goes to confront Takako. Takako then discloses to her Kisako is their mother, who has run away with another man when Akiko was still a toddler. Shaken, Akiko goes to confront Kisako to ask if she is the daughter of her father. She leaves in a huff, angered by Kisako abandoning her as a child, then goes to a Chinese noodle shop for some sake. Her boyfriend Kenji enters, and the two has a tiff. Akiko leaves angrily, but is hit by a train at an intersection just outside the shop.

Akiko is badly injured and she expresses the wish to live and start life over again in the presence of her father and sister. In the next scene however, in one of Ozu's famous ellipses, a bitter Takako goes to visit her mother to tell her the news of Akiko's death. Kisako is distraught, and agrees with her new husband that she will leave Tokyo for his new assignment. She goes to the Sugiyamas to offer her last condolescence, and to tell Takako of her decision. Unfortunately, Takako does not go to send her off at the railway station.

In the last scene of the film, Takako reveals to her father that she is going back to her husband to try to make their marriage work again. She does not want her toddler daughter to follow in the path of Akiko, who lacks the love of one parent. Shukuchi agrees with her decision.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0051093/

Early Summer (1951)

AKA Bakushû

Director:
Yasujirô Ozu

Writers:
Kôgo Noda
Yasujirô Ozu

Noriko (Setsuko Hara), a secretary in Tokyo, lives in the extended Mamiya family at Kamakura, Kanagawa, which includes her parents Shukichi and Shige (Ichirô Sugai and Chieko Higashiyama), her elder doctor brother Koichi (Chishu Ryu), his wife Fumiko (Kuniko Miyake), and their two young sons Minoru (Zen Murase) and Isamu (Isao Shirosawa).

An elderly uncle (Kokuten Kodo) arrives from the provinces to visit Tokyo, and reminds everyone that Noriko is at an age where she should marry. At work, Noriko's boss Satake (Shûji Sano) recommends a match for her involving a forty-year-old friend, Mr Manabe, who is a businessman and an avid golfer. Her other friends are divided into two groups—the married and the unmarried—who tease one another endlessly, with Aya Tamura (Chikage Awashima) her close ally in the unmarried group.

The Mamiya family applies gentle pressure on Noriko to accept the match proposed by Satake. However, when childhood friend Kenkichi Yabe (Hiroshi Nihonyanagi), a doctor widower with a young girl, is posted to Akita, his mother Tami (Haruko Sugimura) impulsively asks Noriko to marry Kenkichi and follow them in their northward resettlement. To Tami's surprise, Noriko agrees. When Noriko reveals her decision to her family, the Mamiya family is quietly devastated. Unable to pressure her into dropping the match, which they think is a poor one owing to Kenkichi's widower status, they have to slowly re-adjust themselves to this decision.

The family now accepts Noriko's choice with quiet resignation and before Noriko moves on, the family has a last photoshoot together. Noriko's parents console themselves that Noriko and Kenkichi will move back to Tokyo in a few years' time, and the family will be reunited. Meanwhile, the parents shall move to a rural region to stay with Noriko's elderly uncle. The movie ends with a shot of a barley field ripening, which signifies the season the film is set in, early summer.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0043313/

The End of Summer (1961)

AKA Kohayagawa-ke no aki

Director:
Yasujirô Ozu

Writers:
Kôgo Noda
Yasujirô Ozu

 

Manbei Kohayagawa (Ganjiro Nakamura) is the head a small sake brewery company at Kyoto with three daughters. His eldest and youngest daughters, Akiko (Setsuko Hara) and Noriko (Yôko Tsukasa), stay together in Osaka. Akiko is a widow who helps out at an art gallery and who has a son. Noriko, unmarried, works as a salaried office worker. Manbei's second daughter, Fumiko (Michiyo Aratama), lives with him. Her husband helps at the brewery and they have a young son.

Manbei asks his brother-in-law Kitagawa (Daisuke Katô) to find Akiko a husband, and Kitagawa lets Akiko meet a friend Isomura Eiichirou (Hisaya Morishige), a widower, at a pub. Isomura is enthusiastic about the match but Akiko is hesitant. Manbei also asks Kitagawa to arrange a matchmaking session for his youngest daughter, Noriko.

During summer Manbei sneaks out constantly to meet his old flame, a former mistress by the name of Sasaki Tsune (Chieko Naniwa). Sasaki has a grown-up, rather Westernized daughter Yuriko who may or may not be Manbei's own daughter. When Fumiko finds out Manbei has been seeing Sasaki again, she is angered and confronts her father, but Manbei denies the whole affair.

The Kohayagawa family meets for a memorial service for their late mother at Arashiyama. After returning, Manbei has a heart attack but survives. Akiko asks Noriko about her matchmaking session with a man with a voracious appetite, but it appears Noriko is more inclined towards a friend Teramoto (Akira Takarada), a lecturer who has just moved to Sapporo as an assistant professor.

In a secret trip out with Sasaki to and back from Osaka, Manbei has another heart attack, and dies shortly after. Sasaki informs the daughters of what happened. The ailing Kohayagawa brewery is to be merged with a business rival's, while Noriyo decides to go to Sapporo to search out Teramoto. At the film's end, the Kohayagawa family gathers and reminisces about Manbei's life as his body is cremated.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0055052/

Floating Weeds (1959)

AKA Ukigusa

Director:
Yasujirô Ozu

Writers:
Kôgo Noda
Yasujirô Ozu

The film takes place during a hot summer in 1958 at a seaside town in the Inland Sea. A troupe of travelling theatre arrives by ship, headed by the troupe's lead actor and owner, Komajuro (Ganjiro Nakamura). The rest of the troupe goes around the town to promote their kabuki acts.

Komajuro visits his former mistress, Oyoshi, who runs a small eatery in the town. They have a grown-up son Kiyoshi, who now works at the post office as a mail clerk and is saving up to go to the university. However, he does not know who Komajuro is, thinking he is his uncle. Komajuro invites Kiyoshi to go fishing in the sea.

When Sumiko, the lead actress of the troupe and Komajuro's current mistress, learns that Komajuro is visiting his former mistress, she becomes jealous and makes a visit to Oyoshi's eatery, where Kiyoshi and Komajuro are playing a game of go. Komajuro chases her away before she can say anything destructive, then confronts her in the pouring rain. He tells her to get off her back from her son, and decides to break up with her. Sumiko calls Komajuro an ingrate, and cites examples when she has helped him out in the past.

Backstage one day, Sumiko offers Kayo, a pretty young actress from the same troupe, some money and asks her to seduce Kiyoshi. Although Kayo at first refuses, she gives in after Sumiko's insistence. She goes to Kiyoshi's post office to make him fall for her. However, after knowing Kiyoshi for some time, she falls for him and decides to tell Kiyoshi the truth. Kiyoshi says it does not matter how it all starts. The two then engage in a relationship which only later is found out by Komajuro.

Komajuro confronts Kayo, who tells him of Sumiko's setup, but only after asserting she now loves Kiyoshi and is not doing it for money. Komajuro has a violent confrontation with Sumiko, and refuses to listen to her plea for a reconciliation.

The manager of the troupe has absconded, and business is bad. Komajuro has no choice but to disband the troupe, and they have a last night together. Komajuro then goes to Oyoshi's place and tells her of his troupe's break-up. Oyoshi persuades him to tell Kiyoshi the truth about his parenthood and then stay together her place as a family. Komajuro agrees. When Kiyoshi later comes back with Kayo, Komajuro becomes so enraged to see them together that he beats both of them repeatedly, leading to a physical tussle between Kiyoshi and him. Oyoshi is forced to reveal to him the truth about his birth there, but Kiyoshi refuses to accept it and goes to his room upstairs. Taking in Kiyoshi's reaction, Komajuro decides to leave after all. Kayo wants to join him, but Komajuro asks her to stay to help Kiyoshi out. Kiyoshi later has a change of heart and goes downstairs to look for Komajuro, but his father has already left.

At the train station, Komajuro tries to light a cigarette but has no matches. Sumiko, who is sitting nearby, comes up and offers him a light. Sumiko asks where Komajuro is going, since she has now no place to go. The two reconcile and Sumiko decides to join Komajuro to start anew under another impresario at Kuwana. The last scene of the film shows Komajuro, tended by Sumiko, in a train heading for Kuwana.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0053390/

Late Autumn (1960)

AKA Akibiyori

Directed by
Yasujirô Ozu        

Writing credits
Ton Satomi (novel)
Kôgo Noda
Yasujirô Ozu

 

Three middle-aged friends and former college mates – Mamiya (Shin Saburi), Taguchi (Nobuo Nakamura) and Hirayama (Ryuji Kita) – meet up for the 7th memorial service of a late college friend, Miwa. Miwa's widow Akiko (Setsuko Hara) and 24-year-old daughter Ayako (Yôko Tsukasa) are also present. The three friends remark amongst themselves how good Akiko looks despite being in her forties.

The party chats and thinks that it is time for Ayako to get married. Taguchi tells them he has a prospective suitor for Ayako, but it later turns out the man already has a fiancée. Mamiya instead offers his employee, Goto (Keiji Sada), as another match, but Ayako confides privately in Akiko that she has no wish of getting married. Ayako, who lives alone with Akiko, is close to her mother, who teaches dressmaking.

Ayako meets Goto one day at Mamiya's office. Later, after a hiking trip, a fellow colleague offers to introduce him to Ayako again. Ayako and Goto rapidly progress to be a couple, but Ayako is unwilling to get married because that will mean Akiko will live all alone. Ayako puts forward to Mamiya her theory that "romance and marriage could be separate". The three friends think that all this is an excuse and begin to speculate that Ayako will marry if Akiko remarry. The other two offer Hirayama, a widower, as Akiko's prospective remarriage partner. Hirayama warns them not to go ahead with their plan, but after privately obtaining permission from his son to remarry, changes his mind.

Hirayama now approaches Taguchi and Mamiya for help. Before they can break the subject to Akiko, however, Mamiya tactlessly lets Ayako know about their plan. Thinking that her mother has known about this, an unhappy Ayako goes home to question her and then leaves for her colleague and friend Yukiko's (Mariko Okada) place in a huff. Yukiko however approves of Akiko's remarriage. She persuades Ayako not to be so selfish, which gains Ayako's displeasure.

Displeased, Yukiko confronts the three friends, and finds out the truth from them. Mamiya apologizes for their mishap; however, seeing their cause, Yukiko decides to help Hirayama. Unfortunately, when Akiko and Ayako go for their last trip together, Akiko tells her daughter she has decided not to marry. She urges Ayako not to worry about her. With her assurance, Ayako successfully marries Goto, leaving her mother to live all alone in her apartment.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0053579/

Tokyo Story (1953)

AKA Tôkyô monogatari

Director:
Yasujirô Ozu

Writers:
Kôgo Noda
Yasujirô Ozu

Two elderly parents Shukichi (Chishu Ryu) and Tomi Hirayama (Chieko Higashiyama), from the small seaside town of Onomichi in southwest Japan, pay a visit to their busy children in Tokyo and Osaka. Only their youngest unmarried daughter lives with them: Kyoko (Kyoko Kagawa), a schoolteacher.

Upon arriving in Tokyo (before the advent of the bullet train, almost a day's journey), they find themselves neglected by their children. Their eldest son, Koichi (So Yamamura), is a district pediatrician with two boys. Their eldest daughter, Shige (Haruko Sugimura), is a hairdresser. The children wish to spend time with their parents, and do, to an extent; but, as they have lives, work and families of their own, they find it difficult to maintain a balance between the two. Only the couple's widowed daughter-in-law Noriko (Setsuko Hara) goes out of her way to entertain them. She takes them on a sightseeing tour of metropolitan Tokyo.

Koichi and Shige pay for their parents' cheap stay at the hot spring spa at Atami, but the parents return because the busy nightlife at the hotel interrupts their sleep. Shukichi stays with Shige and visits some old friends, while Tomi goes to visit Noriko. At Noriko's, Tomi advises Noriko to remarry as her husband, the couple's son, died eight years ago in the war.

The couple, seeing that their children are too busy, leave for home. They stop at their youngest son Keizo's (Shiro Osaka) place at Osaka, but during the ensuing train journey Tomi is taken ill. When they reach Onomichi, Tomi becomes critically ill. Koichi, Shige and Noriko rush to Onomichi, on receiving telegrams, to see Tomi, who dies shortly afterwards. Keizo arrives late as he is outstationed.

After the funeral, Koichi, Shige and Keizo decide to leave immediately as they have their work at Osaka and Tokyo, leaving only Noriko to keep their father company. After they leave, Kyoko complains to Noriko that they are selfish and inconsiderate, but Noriko explains that everyone has their own lives to lead and that the drift between parents and children is inevitable.

After Kyoko leaves for school, Noriko informs her father-in-law that she must return to Tokyo that afternoon. Shukichi notes ironically that it is she, a daughter-in-law who has no blood relation with them, who has treated them best during their Tokyo visit. He gives her a watch from the late Tomi as a memento, and advises her to remarry. At the end, the train with Noriko speeds from Onomichi back to Tokyo, leaving behind Kyoko and Shukichi.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0046438/

Late Spring (1949)

AKA Banshun

Directed by
Yasujirô Ozu

Writing credits
Kazuo Hirotsu (based on the novel "Chichi to musume" by)

Kôgo Noda (screenplay)
Yasujirô Ozu (screenplay)

Professor Shukichi Somiya (Chishu Ryu) has only one child, a twenty-seven-year-old unmarried daughter, Noriko (Setsuko Hara), who takes care of his everyday needs. However, a meeting with his sister Masa (Haruko Sugimura) convinces him that she is now of marriageable age. Noriko is close to his assistant, Hattori (Jun Usami), and Masa asks Somiya to question Noriko if Hattori is interested in her. However it turns out that Hattori already has a fiancée he is about to marry.

A Kyoto friend of Somiya, Professor Onodera, pays a visit to the Somiyas. Noriko learns that Onodera, a widower, has remarried, and she tells Onodera that she finds the idea distasteful - filthy even. Onodera teases her endlessly for harboring such thoughts. Meanwhile, Masa keeps pressurizing Noriko to go for a matchmaking session to see a prospective match who resembles Gary Cooper. Noriko declines, stating that she does not want to marry because of her father. Marrying will leave him alone and helpless. Masa declares that she plans to matchmake her father and Mrs Miwa, a widow, which will mean someone will take care of him.

At a Noh performance, Somiya nods to Mrs Miwa, which triggers a pang of jealousy in Noriko. When her father tries to talk her into going for the matchmaking session, he tells her that he is going to marry Mrs Miwa. Devastated, Noriko decides to go to see the match. To her surprise, she has pleasant impression of him. Masa talks to her if she will marry. Spurred by thoughts of her father remarrying, Noriko gives in to her aunt and agrees.

The Somiyas go for their last trip together, to Kyoto, where they meet Onodera and his family. Noriko reverses her attitude towards Onodera's remarriage when she finds his new wife a pleasant lady. While packing luggages for their way home, Noriko asks Somiya why can't they stay as they are now – she is happy with her father and marriage certainly can't make her any happier. Somiya admonishes her and gives her a short talk asking her to strive for marital happiness together with her husband, something that will take time and effort. Noriko apologizes for her earlier thoughts and agrees to wed.

Noriko finally leaves on her wedding day. Noriko's divorced friend Aya (Yumeji Tsukioka) stays with Somiya in a bar, long enough to hear him confess his supposed "remarriage" to Mrs Miwa is all a ploy to get Noriko married. Aya is touched by his sacrifice and promises to come and visit him often, but Somiya must go back and face the quiet night all alone in his apartment.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0041154/

A Story of Floating Weeds (1934)

AKA Ukikusa monogatari

Director:
Yasujirô Ozu

Writers:
Tadao Ikeda
Yasujirô Ozu (story)

The film starts with a travelling kabuki troupe arriving by train at a provincial seaside town. Kihachi Ichikawa (Takeshi Sakamoto), the head of the troupe, is a very popular actor. He takes time off to visit a former mistress Otsune (Chouko Iida), with whom he had a son years before. His son, now a student, does not know that Kihachi is his father, thinking him an uncle. Kihachi and his son, Shinkichi, spend a fruitful afternoon fishing for dace in a nearby river.

When the troupe's performance tour is postponed by the constant downpour around the region, one of the members of the troupe unwittingly reveals a secret: that Kihachi is seeing a woman every day. Otaka (Rieko Yagumo), one of Kihachi’s actresses and his present mistress, decides to pay a visit to Otsune's watering-hole with fellow actress Otoki (Yoshiko Tsubouchi). Kihachi becomes enraged, warns Otaka never to come and harass the mother and son again, and breaks off his relationship with her.

To get back at Otsune and Kihachi, Otaka suggests to Otoki to try to seduce Shinkichi and offers her some money. Otoki waits for Shinkichi at a tree by the road one day and offers to meet after her performance at the same place. Shinkichi agrees to the meeting, and the two start a clandestine love affair.

As time goes by, Otoki realizes she has fallen for Shinkichi. She tells Shinkichi to forget her because she is merely a traveling actress. Kihachi discovers their affair, confronts Otoki and slaps her, demanding to know what she wants. Otoki reveals Otaka's setup, but tells him she now loves Shinkichi and is not doing this for money. Kihachi then beats up Otaka, but realizes he no longer has any control over the affair.

Kihachi decides to disband the troupe, selling all their costumes and props. The kabuki actors have one last night together. Kihachi visits Otsune, and tells her of his troupe's break-up. She invites him to stay with her for good, and they decide to tell Shinkichi of his paternity secret. Shinkichi and Otoki return, but Shinkichi and Kihachi get into a violent quarrel when Kihachi hits Otoki repeatedly.

Otsune now tells Shinkichi that Kihachi is his father, but Kihachi refuses to acknowledge him for abandoning them. Otsune reasons that Kihachi doesn't want Shinkichi to become a traveling actor like him. Shinkichi leaves for his room in a huff. Kihachi decides to restart another troupe, realizing he cannot stay. Otoki asks to join him, but Kihachi leaves her in Otsune's care and asks Otoki to help his son be a great man.

Shinkichi comes down to look for his father but he has gone on the road. At the railway station, Kihachi meets Otoki who helps light his cigarette with matches. He invites her to start a new traveling troupe with him at Kamisuwa. Otaka goes to buy an extra ticket to accompany him. The film ends with a shot of a train traveling toward Kamisuwa.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0025929/