REVIEW: DVD Release: Equinox Flower

Film: Equinox Flower
Release date: 17th January 2011
Certificate: U
Running time: 118 mins
Director: Yasujiro Ozu
Starring: Shin Saburi, Kinuyo Tanaka, Ineko Arima, Yoshiko Kuga, Keiji Sada
Genre: Comedy/Drama
Studio: BFI
Format: DVD
Country: Japan

It was only after his death in 1963 that the films of Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu began to be widely appreciated in the west, and he is now held in high esteem by the likes of Mike Leigh, Jim Jarmusch and Wim Wenders. This dual format disc containing two of Ozu’s best loved films shows how important the twin themes of family and the impermanence of life and culture was to the influential director. There Was A Father (1942) and Equinox Flower (1958) both explore shifting family dynamics to quietly powerful effect.

Ozu’s first colour film, 1958’s Equinox Flower, is probably the pick of the two films; a slyly amusing comedy starring Shin Saburi as Wataru Hirayama, an old-fashioned father and businessman who is in for a nasty surprise when he discovers that his eldest daughter has decided to marry a man he and his wife know nothing about.

Mr Hirayama (somehow it seems inappropriate, given his character, to refer to him by his first name) is a likeable but deeply paternalistic man who believes that is his task, with the support of his dutiful wife, to arrange marriages for his daughters.

Mr Hirayama is aware that Japan is changing and that the traditions he holds dear are not as important to the younger generation, but when it his own daughter challenging him he finds it difficult to adapt.

Eventually, however, and partly due to a little deviously amusing trickery on the part of a younger female relative, he begrudgingly accepts that his daughter’s will is her own.

Earlier film There Was A Father (packaged as a bonus feature) is a 1942 wartime drama about the relationship between a similarly straight-laced father, Shuhei Horikawa (Chishu Ryu), and his son Ryohei.

Shuhei is a widower and teacher who decides to quit his profession following a tragic boating accident. This change sets in motion a series of events that will separate Shuhei from his young son, with the tearful youngster carted off to boarding school.

As the years go by, and Ryohei reaches adulthood, he realises that his father made great sacrifices in order to give him the best possible education, but he still yearns to spend more time with him…


In some ways, particularly in terms of its visual style, Equinox Flower appears far ahead of its time. Ozu is known as a director who refused to pander to Hollywood conventions relating to both visual techniques and narrative structure, and Equinox Flower has a highly distinctive look that owes much to the ‘tatami shot’ that Ozu pioneered; a low shot named after the tatami mats used in Japanese homes to sit on, and beautifully composed static or near static shots that linger on the screen, highlighting the visually arresting geometry of domestic and urban spaces.

The use of colour is also important, especially the contrast between the rich, warm colours in the shots of domestic interiors and the more intense colours of commercial signs in the city. This contrast isn’t just a visual device; it draws attention to the shift from traditional to modern values that is central to the film’s story and Mr Hirayama’s dilemma.

For its time, the acting seems wonderfully understated, even in the film’s more comic moments, or when Mr Hirayama is responding with petulant anger to his daughter’s refusal to submit to his will. The humour in Equinox Flower is subtle but pointed; in one particularly enjoyable scene that redefines the notion of toilet humour. Mr Hirayama, unable to continue listening to an annoying woman’s incessant chatter about her attempts to arrange a marriage for her daughter, politely excuses himself by claiming he needs to go the toilet, then heads straight back to his office to escape her babbling.

The performances in There Was A Father are similarly understated, but in place of comedy there is an aching sense of loss, of physical distance between father and son, but also of love and connectedness. In spite of living far from one another for many years, there is a strong bond between father and son that is evident even when they are apart.

There Was A Father does show its age more than Equinox Flower, not simply because it was shot in black-and-white, but because the best print available has deteriorated over time, to the point that the sound quality is sometimes quite poor, and the film scratchy. Even so, it’s interesting to see an earlier example of Ozu’s work; one that shares the underlying thematic focus of his later work.


If you’re interested in Asian cinema of the past and want an introduction to one of Japan’s most influential and respected directors, this double bill is a great place to start. Ozu’s films are clearly rooted in the Japanese experience, but his explorations of family life have a universal appeal that transcends time and place. JG

REVIEW: DVD Release: Good Morning

Film: Good Morning
Release date: 17th January 2011
Certificate: U
Running time: 205 mins
Director: Yasujiro Ozu
Starring: Keiji Sada, Yoshiko Kuga, Chishû Ryû, Kuniko Miyake, Haruko Sugimura
Genre: Comedy/Drama
Studio: BFI
Format: DVD
Country: Japan

In a world where the mundane hides meaning, it’s what’s left unspoken that is most poignant. Communication and real people is what Yasujirô Ozu listlessly investigates in his recently re-released Good Morning, an engaging snatch of life in a mediocre Japanese community.

How does a filmmaker plot real life? Minimally, if they use Ozu’s approach. The narrative is threadbare, almost to the point on non-existence. Although it is scripted, ‘documentary’ springs to mind.

Whilst schoolboys are busy envying each other and making vows of silence, their mothers are occupied with finger pointing when the Women’s Group’s fees go missing - but more to the point, Mrs Haraguchi has a new washing machine! Her recent acquisition certainly ruffles a few feathers, and gives the women something to cluck about, even incurring accusations between mother and daughter. Gossip and bickering is consistent, but no-one ever really listens to each other, much less take action.

Upon beginning the film, viewers may expect this saga to come to a climactic conclusion after an hour or so of tension. A solution is reached, but not with the drama that other directors would feel obliged to create.

In addition to the money mystery, Ozu inserts a few subplots, which resemble frivolous anecdotes more than narratives. Two young brothers get up to harmless antics and demand a television set from their parents like their friends have. A pensioner is driven back to work to cover the cost of living. A bachelor and a young lady are on the cusp of a relationship, only they’re too scared to admit it. But isn’t it these little things that make life what it is?


That is why Good Morning forms such a strong bond with the viewer; establishing a shared understanding. Ozu presents audiences with a candidly dull account of life, which is thoroughly universal and timeless. To the onlooker who watches from the outside, nothing really happens, but actually an awful lot does go on within. Take the budding couple, for example - who hasn’t felt that silent swell of excitement and affection for another person at some point in their life? Those uneventful family meals that host squabbling siblings and trifling inconveniences have undoubtedly been lived by audience members. Ozu engages on a level seldom seen in the arts for fear of boring the consumer; but in this case, its very monotony is what makes the film memorable.

If the characters’ lack of purpose is most striking within the film, then cinematic style holds the fort without. Over the course of the film, it will dawn on viewers how effectively these two matters work together here, strengthening the laborious pace that is established from the start. Static cameras and an overall omission of movement may initially go undetected - one of those clever techniques which manages to create effect without drawing attention to itself – but when the finger finally lands on what exactly is feeding this atmosphere, it adds to the intentional frustration at lack of progress within the narrative.

Camera angles also feel odd and bizarre. Viewers frequently find themselves on the floor, watching the feet of characters who enter and exit the scene reminding them of Japanese culture. Cinematographer Yûharu Atsuta truly makes his presence known, however, through a peculiar obsession with straight lines and right angles; a visual clue to Ozu’s study of conformity. Interior design, patterns on clothing, and the village layout are dominated by squares and rectangles, and should just one of those lines be broken, it would immediately ruin the entire shot. This is equally the case within Ozu’s community, where change is an alien concept. This highly structured and rather artificial environment is also reflected in characters’ movement. Controlled to the point of choreography, paths rarely meet on the street so that characters are always alone, just missing the chance to interact with others.

Whilst the tedium of life makes Good Morning as applicable today as when it was made, several traits also mark it as a film of its time. That phobia of individuality dates and locates it perfectly, but so do other trivialities. Made at the end of the 1950s, the decade’s leap forward in technology is addressed here with implications of progress and youth; afterall, the other invention that the ‘50s saw was the advent of adolescence. Good Morning bears witness to a generational split, emphasised by the reoccurrence of gadgets. Whilst some are swayed by “idiot boxes” and appliances, others are struggling to resist the wind of change, determined to uphold their traditionally familiar home. But Ozu seems to maintain that technology is the way forward, for that pensioner who returns to work is doing so as an electrical salesman.

Also included on the re-release of Good Morning is one of Ozu’s earlier efforts, I Was Born, But… , a compelling coming-of-age story and a powerful statement on overwhelming capitalism.

I Was Born, But… centres around a middle-class version of the families we see in Good Morning, complete with two inseparable brothers who learn a massive life lesson. This family, however, are driven by what the later family lack: a determination to succeed and become “important.” The father works for a powerful company beneath his manager, whom he makes every effort to charm, for what is ambition and achievement without promotion?

His passion for prominence has inevitably been engrained on the minds of his sons, who evidently feel pressure on their own academic performance. A spanner is thrown into the works, however, by the school bullies. The playground predators make school life intolerable, spurring the miserable brothers to sacrifice their grades and skip classes.

Not only do their grades slip, but they also learn that their father might not practice exactly what he preached. The boys’ blind admiration is cast into doubt when they realise that dad isn’t as respectable as they were led to believe. In this humiliating scene, the boys’ acceptance by their peers, which they have worked - and paid - so hard to win, is also placed under threat; this is no minor problem to a child, nor in a society where approval means everything.

I Was Born, But… is a sceptical reflection of the domineering commercialism of the superficial West. The entire premise of the film is balanced upon the ruthless realities brought on by modern capitalism. Sadly, material achievement takes precedence over happiness and the young brothers’ rather touching introduction to this makes Ozu’s statement all the more brutal.


“Reality TV” is a term that has been thrown around for almost two decades, but Ozu was ahead of the game. Bravely admitting that reality isn’t all excitement, he even pre-dates the British Realism trend of the 1960s. Some may find comfort in his film’s modesty, reassurance that life doesn’t have to be all thrills. Others may choose to take it as a warning. Escapism certainly isn’t one of Good Morning’s allures, but empathy and insight might be. RS

NEWS: DVD Release: Good Morning

A bright Tokyo suburb buzzing with gossip is the backdrop to Ozu’s cheerful comedy, Good Morning.

Disillusioned with the seemingly meaningless talk of the adults around them, two brothers take a vow of silence when their parents refuse to buy them a television. With a dexterously woven plot, built on mishaps and misunderstandings, Good Morning pokes fun at the silliness of everyday chatter whilst gently acknowledging its fundamental necessity.

Also included here is Ozu’s superb early comedy I Was Born, But… The forerunner of Good Morning, this silent masterpiece contains many similar themes but a darker edge. As brothers Ryoichi and Keiji struggle to outwit the local bully, and scale the pecking order in their new neighbourhood, they find out that injustice does not end with school.

Good Morning is included in standard and high-definition (DVD & Blu-ray), with new and improved English subtitles, and a newly recorded score for I Was Born, But… by composer Ed Hughes and the New Music Players. The package includes an illustrated booklet with a newly commissioned sleevenote essay by silent film curator Bryony Dixon and a contemporary review by Jonathan Rosenbaum.

Film: Good Morning
Release date: 17th January 2011
Certificate: U
Running time: 205 mins
Director: Yasujiro Ozu
Starring: Keiji Sada, Yoshiko Kuga, Chishû Ryû, Kuniko Miyake, Haruko Sugimura
Genre: Comedy/Drama
Studio: BFI
Format: DVD
Country: Japan

NEWS: DVD Release: Equinox Flower

Yasujiro Ozu’s first colour film, Equinox Flower is a deft comedy that takes an ironic glance at the decline of paternal authority.

Shin Saburi plays Wataru Hirayama, an old-fashioned father whose outwardly liberal views on marriage are severely tested when his daughter tells him she wants a love-match. Outwitted and outflanked by his wily female relatives, Hirayama stubbornly refuses to admit defeat.

The director’s playful use of colour, poetry and arch humour combine to make this tale of old versus new at once deeply moving and razor-sharp.

Paternal authority is unquestionably ascendant in Ozu’s powerful war-time drama There Was A Father, which is included here. Shuhei Horikawa (Chishu Ryu) sacrifices his teaching career after an unfortunate accident but refuses to sacrifice the education of his only son.

Both films are included in standard and high-definition (DVD & Blu-ray), with new and improved English subtitles. The package includes a fully illustrated booklet with newly commissioned sleevenote essays by Asian cinema expert Tony Rayns.

Film: Equinox Flower
Release date: 17th January 2011
Certificate: U
Running time: 118 mins
Director: Yasujiro Ozu
Starring: Shin Saburi, Kinuyo Tanaka, Ineko Arima, Yoshiko Kuga, Keiji Sada
Genre: Comedy/Drama
Studio: BFI
Format: DVD
Country: Japan

REVIEW: DVD Release: Early Summer

Film: Early Summer
Release date: 19th July 2010
Certificate: U
Running time: 125 mins
Director: Yasujiro Ozu
Starring: Setsuko Hara, Mamiya, Chishû Ryû, Chikage Awashima, Kuniko Miyake, Ichirô Sugai
Genre: Drama
Studio: BFI
Format: DVD & Blu-ray
Country: Japan

Continuing his collaboration with Setsuko Hara, Early Summer is the second film in Yasujiro Ozu’s Noriko trilogy. Focusing on many of themes explored throughout his films, this is another highpoint in a directing career filled with them.

Noriko is a successful, middle class girl making her way in post war Japan. She lives in a large household comprised of her parents and her brother’s family.

Dividing her time between work, socialising with her friends and helping out her family, Noriko has little time for romance and marriage - this is a concern for her family, who believe she must be wed.

Politically minded and empowered by the social shift that has occurred after the war, Noriko has radical ideas about relationships and marriage, which complicates things when a marriage is orchestrated for her. Meanwhile, her parents lament the loss of family and friends to the war, and place hope in the happiness of their daughter.

Noriko eventually chooses to marry her old friend Kenkichi, as a special favour to his mother, but this decision does not sit well with her family. Noriko finally decides to ignore her families concerns and marry Kenkichi…


Like many of the films made in the latter half of Yasujiro Ozu’s prolific career, Early Summer is about the aftermath of war and the splintering effect it can have on the modern Japanese family. It’s also about the struggle of the individual against the influence of accepted society and familial meddling.

In this case, the one striving to make her own way in life, unhindered by the marital machinations of her family, is Noriko, played once again by the radiant Setsuko Hara. Ozu chooses to focus on the family unit and how tensions can often rise from a steadfast adherence to tradition. Noriko’s family wishes her to be wed for what they believe to be her own good, not for her happiness. Noriko, who argues women’s rights with her co-workers, and chides her married friends, chooses to marry because she feels it is right for her.

Hara is perfect in the central role - her unwavering optimism and playful smile completely at odds with those around her. Her mother and father struggle to cope with the loss of their son, while her brother Koichi (played by Tokyo Story’s Chisu Ryu) is frustrated by his sister’s hesitations. Hara is often a contrasting presence in Ozu’s films, and Early Summer is no exception.

Ultimately a positive story, like many of the director’s films, there are moments of overwhelming sadness. With Early Summer, it is the divisive conclusion, which sees a resolution to the central dilemma at the cost of the central characters happiness. If anything this highlights Ozu’s intelligent approach to traditional narrative - there is no hope for the characters, just the promise of hope.


As a portrait of the Japanese family unit after World War II, Early Summer is a triumph. Ozu once again adds political subtext and social commentary to a conventional narrative, coaxing another mesmerising performance out of Setsuko Hara along the way. KT

REVIEW: DVD Release: Tokyo Story

Film: Tokyo Story
Release date: 19th July 2010
Certificate: U
Running time: 136 mins
Director: Yasujiro Ozu
Starring: Chishû Ryû, Chieko Higashiyama, Setsuko Hara, Haruko Sugimura, So Yamamura
Genre: Drama
Studio: BFI
Format: DVD
Country: Japan

Regarded by many as the finest work of maverick Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu, Tokyo Story continued to display the director’s signature minimalist style, a style that was largely ignored by western audiences who favoured the samurai epics of Kurosawa over his delicate dramas.

The film opens on the image of elderly couple Shukichi and Tomi quietly packing and preparing to meet their children in Tokyo, excited and filled with pride at producing such successful offspring.

They arrive at the capital to stay with their eldest child Koichi and are greeted by his family and their eldest daughter Shige. Initially granted a warm welcome and promised many activities, it soon becomes clear that Tomi and Shukichi’s children cannot fit them into their busy lifestyles. Koichi, a paediatrician, struggles to find time away from his patients, while daughter Shige doesn’t seem interested in them at all. The only accommodating presence in Tokyo seems to be Noriko, the widow of Tomi and Shukichi’s second son. Noriko spends a lot of time with them and is as appreciative as if she was there real daughter.

During their journey home, Shukichi is taken ill and later dies. The children and Noriko visit Tomi for the funeral, once again Koichi and Shige display selfishness and disrespect towards their parents...


Yasujiro Ozu is perhaps the finest director Japan has ever produced. His stark filmmaking style is akin to that of the nouvelle vague and the Italian neo realist period. Evolving over time, Ozu’s films focus on narrative and performance, eschewing traditional Hollywood conventions in favour of bold stylistic choices such as the ‘atami shot’, a low angle camera position that the director pioneered. The ‘atami’ fixes the viewers gaze in such a way as to observe the proceedings from a kneeling position, often bringing us to the same level as his characters.

Tokyo Story is a perfect example of this wonderful craft. A film that unfolds at its own pace with a simplistic narrative, yet it’s the complexity of the characters in which Ozu and co-writer Kogo Noda place the most focus.

The narrative itself is steadfastly linear, allowing story and character to breathe. The central family are at odds with their own lives; Tomi and Shukichi are in their twilight years and only wish to be around family. They find their every attempt blighted by the hectic lifestyles of the stoic Koichi and the selfish Shige. Brief moments of heartfelt drama punctuate the film, like Shukichi lamenting the end of her life to the youngest of Koichi’s family, a sequence that highlights how often the director juxtaposes uplifting sentiment with great sorrow. Another example of this is present in one of the film’s rare light-hearted moments when Tomi meets with some old friends for a drink - the scene is bookended by bleak ruminations on death and regret.

Perhaps the films most heartbreaking moment comes when son Keizo, rarely seen or mentioned throughout the film, arrives late to the death of Shukichi - the shot of Keizo seeing his mother’s body captures perfectly the overwhelming sadness on his face. In a film about contained feelings, the impact of this scene is tangible.

Setsuko Hara is the beating heart of the film. As Noriko, she represents all that Tomi and Shukichi expect from their children but do not receive. Ironically, she is also the only one who attempts to make sense of Koichi and Shige’s selfish behaviour to faithful daughter Kyoko. It’s clear that director and camera love Hara - Ozu’s lovingly crafted shot compositions revering her delicate features. As well as Hara, the film is populated with strong performances, particularly from Cheiko Higashiyama, who impresses as the families softly spoken patriarch - his recognition of Noriko in the film’s closing moments is strangely uplifting.


Tokyo Story is a beautiful yet bittersweet portrait of regret and death. Ozu’s unassuming directorial style finds humanity in verisimilitude, his ‘atami shot’ mining raw emotion from his actors naturalist performances. A true masterpiece. KT

NEWS: BFI To Launch The Ozu Collection On DVD

BFI have announced they will be releasing 32 films on DVD as part of their Ozu Collection, starting with Tokyo Story, Early Summer and Late Spring on 19 July 2010.

“Following its recent hugely popular theatrical retrospective of world-renowned Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu’s entire surviving films,” read a press release, “the BFI will release all 32 films on DVD over the next three years. At least seven of these films will also be made available on Blu-ray for the first time.”

The Ozu Collection launches with the Dual Format Edition releases (both a Blu-ray and a DVD disc in one box) of Tokyo Story (1953), Early Summer (1951) and Late Spring (1949). Extra features with each of these three titles, and with subsequent releases, will include an early Ozu film that has never been available in the UK before.

Yasujiro Ozu came into the Japanese film business in 1923; he was 19 at the time and a huge film buff, having spent much of his teenage life watching imported Hollywood films. He joined Shochiku (the company he stayed with all his life) as a camera assistant and soon went on to become an assistant director and script collaborator. He learned his craft on the job and quickly became competent in framing shots, staging scenes and building gags in the conventional Hollywood manner. Some five or six years into his career as a director, though, Ozu began to formulate his own distinctive filmic style, a method of framing, pacing and cutting which was soon unique in both Japanese and world cinema. It was a style he pursued right up to his death in 1963.

In film after film, Ozu focused on the everyday lives – at home, at work, in bars or in school – of ordinary people, deploying stories shorn of big melodramatic moments, and balancing gentle comedy with a poignant awareness of life’s limitations and transience.

subtitled will have more details on each title closer to their release dates.

Early Summer