Early Summer, 1951

An independent-minded 28-year old woman living in cosmopolitan, postwar Tokyo may seem immune from the societal pressures of marriage, but in Noriko’s (Setsuko Hara) environment, it is a perennially surfacing, unavoidable topic. Her father, Shukichi (IchirĂ´ Sugai), and mother, Shige (Chieko Higashiyama), are unable to retire to her uncle’s house in the provincial town of […]

The Munekata Sisters, 1950

The film follows the plight of the upper beautiful, middle-class Munekata sisters – the conservative and traditional married older sister, Setsuko (Kinuyo Tanaka) (dressed in a kimono) and the liberal minded and free-spirited younger sister Mariko (Hideko Takamine) (dressed in Western attire) – as they struggle to build a new life in postwar Tokyo away […]

A Hen in the Wind, 1948

A somber, bleak, and uncharacteristically violent Ozu postwar film, A Hen in the Wind follows the plight of a dressmaker named Tokiko (Kinuyo Tanaka) who lives meagerly as a boarder in a modest house in a working class district with her young son Hiroshi. Awaiting her husband’s repatriation from Manchuria, Tokiko subsists through dressmaking and […]

There Was a Father, 1942

A widowed high school teacher named Horikawa (Chishu Ryu) experiences a traumatic episode during a school field trip and consequently, decides to abandon his profession and move to a small town where his son, Ryohei may obtain a good education. However, unable to earn enough money to pay for Ryohei’s boarding school, Horikawa decides to […]