Hitori musuko (1936)

User Rating:

7.6/10   

Director:

Yasujiro Ozu

Writers:

Yasujiro Ozu (short story)
Tadao Ikeda (adaptation) ...

Release Date:

1 April 1987 (USA)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

In 1923, in the province of Shinshu, the widow and simple worker of a silk factory Tsune Nonomiya (O-Tsune)...

Plot Keywords:

Only Son | Teacher | Sacrifice | Poverty | 1920s

Cast

Chôko Iida	...	Tsune Nonomiya (O-Tsune)
Shinichi Himori	...	Ryosuke Nonomiya
Masao Hayama	...	Ryosuke Nonomiya, as child
Yoshiko Tsubouchi	...	Sugiko
Mitsuko Yoshikawa	...	O-Taka
Chishû Ryû	...	Professor Ookubo
Tomoko Naniwa	...	Ookubo's wife
Bakudankozo	...	Okubo's son
Kiyoshi Seino	...	Matsumura, old man
Eiko Takamatsu	...	Jokou
Seiichi Kato	...	Kinjo no ko
Kazuo Kojima	...	Kimiko
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Tomio Aoki	...	Tomibo (as Tokkan Kozou)

Also Known As:

The Only Son

Runtime:

87 min

Country:

Japan

Language:

Japanese

Colour:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Company:

Shôchiku Eiga

Trivia:

This was the last feature made at the Shochiku Kamata studio.

Movie Connections:

Features Leise flehen meine Lieder (1933)

Early Ozu masterpiece

Of all the major directors in the world, Ozu was the last one to convert to sound; "The Only Son" was his first "all-talkie" film (in 1936), and it is remarkably inventive (technically) as well as deeply moving. Once again, his film deals with family dynamics: in this case, a widowed mother who has worked selflessly to provide her son with an education. But when she goes to visit him, she finds that he has not fulfilled his promise: he's stuck in a mediocre job, he has a wife and child and can't make any drastic changes because of his responsibilities. The ways that the mother and son try to reach an understanding, and their mutual resignation to the disappointments of life, create a glancing but powerful sense of that "quiet desperation" which was so often Ozu's theme.