Bakushû (1951)

Director:

Yasujirô Ozu

Writers:

Kôgo Noda
Yasujirô Ozu

Release Date:

2 August 1972 (USA)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

A family chooses a match for their 28-year-old daughter Noriko, but she surprisingly has her own plans.

Plot Keywords:

Bachelor | Post World War Two | Marriage Proposal | Father Son Relationship | Family Relationships

Awards:

7 wins

Cast

Setsuko Hara	...	Noriko Mamiya
Chishû Ryû	...	Koichi Mamiya
Chikage Awashima	...	Aya Tamura
Kuniko Miyake	...	Fumiko Mamiya
Ichirô Sugai	...	Shukichi Mamiya
Chieko Higashiyama	...	Shige Mamiya
Haruko Sugimura	...	Tami Yabe
Kuniko Igawa	...	Takako
Hiroshi Nihon'yanagi	...	Kenkichi Yabe
Shûji Sano	...	Sotaro Satake
Toyo Takahashi	...	Nobu Tamura (as Toyoko Takahashi)
Seiji Miyaguchi	...	Nishiwaki
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Ito Kazuyo	...	Mitsuko Yabe
Kokuten Kôdô	...	Old Uncle
Zen Murase	...	Minoru Mamiya
Tomiko Nishiwaki	...	Tami Yamamoto
Matsuko Shiga	...	Mari Takanashi
Isao Shirosawa	...	Isamu Mamiya

Directed by
Yasujirô Ozu

Writing credits (in alphabetical order)
Kôgo Noda
Yasujirô Ozu

Produced by
Takeshi Yamamoto	....	producer

Original Music by
Senji Itô

Cinematography by
Yûharu Atsuta

Film Editing by
Yoshiyasu Hamamura

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Shôhei Imamura	....	assistant director

Production Companies

• Shôchiku Eiga

Distributors

• Shôchiku Eiga (1951) (Japan) (theatrical)
• Shochiku Home Video (2003) (Japan) (DVD)
• New Yorker Films (1972) (USA) (theatrical) (subtitled)
• Criterion Collection, The (2004) (USA) (DVD)
• Madman Entertainment (2006) (Australia) (all media)
• Madman Entertainment (2006) (New Zealand) (all media)
• Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) (1975) (USA) (TV) (original airing)
• Sony Video (1988) (USA) (VHS)

Also Known As:

"Early Summer" - , International (English title)
"Búzaösz" - Hungary (imdb display title)
"Début d'été" - France
"El començament de l'estiu" - Spain (Catalan title)
"Il tempo del raccolto del grano" - Italy
"Proimo kalokairi" - Greece (festival title)
"Rano ljeto" - Yugoslavia (Croatian title) (imdb display title)
"Wczesne lato" - Poland (imdb display title)
"Weizenherbst" - West Germany

Runtime:

124 min

Country:

Japan

Language:

Japanese

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Australia:G

Filming Locations:

Ginza, Chuo-ku, Tokyo, Japan

Company:

Shôchiku Eiga

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Nihon eiga no hyaku nen (1995) (TV)

And apart from "Tokyo Story".....

There are few lovers of serious cinema who do not consider "Tokyo "Story" a masterpiece. I, for one, would be prepared to place it among the "top ten" of all time. When I first saw it on British TV many years ago I was excited by the discovery of a form of cinema unlike any other. In the months that followed I began to experience frustration that no other of Ozu's fairly large output was available. At long last "Ohayu" turned up. I remember thinking it very inconsequential beside "Tokyo Story" but pleasing nonetheless, possibly Ozu not so much having an off-day as a day off. What I found remarkable however was its stylistic affinity to "Tokyo", the absence of camera movement, the prefacing of each dramatic sequence, generally taking place in a domestic interior shot from near-ground level, with two or three shots, often still-life exteriors with background music carried over into the next dialogue scene; in other words a director who is completely true to his own way of seeing things, as instantly recognisable from a single shot as are composers as diverse as Martinu, Rawsthorne and Roy Harris from one bar of their music. It is only recently that I have managed to catch up with five other Ozu films, each a gem in its own way but small in scale. "Early Summer" is a typical example. It deals with the same situation as "Late Spring", that of the pressures on a young woman by her family to get married. Ozu generally explores family relationships which, although hardly dysfunctional, abound in tensions. Here we have an elderly couple living with their doctor son and their unmarried daughter, the son's wife and their two small sons completing the household. An elderly uncle visits early on and neighbours and friends, particularly those of the unmarried daughter make up the rest of the cast played by a company of stock actors that appear in many of Ozu's films. Each generation responds to life in its own way. The elderly couple are disappointed particularly with the younger members of the family. They sit on park benches or in the privacy of their bedroom and sigh that, in spite of everything, things could be much worse and they should be happy with their lot. The middle generation get on with the business of living, often in a blinkered way so that we wonder whether they are aware of the tensions they so often generate. The children are completely selfish little monsters who cut up rough if they don't get their own way, as when they mistake a wrapped loaf of bread that their father brings home, for the model railway accessories they are hoping to receive. There is little in the way of plot other than that of the "Will she? Won't she?" variety. But for the enormous expectations raised by "Tokyo Story", I might well have passed "Early Summer" by. And yet there is a uniqueness and purity of style that somehow draws me back to these simple vignettes of Japanese domestic life again and again. Ozu has often been compared to Jane Austen, but would not a more appropriate analogy be the novels of Ivy Compton-Burnett. Both are the unique minimalists of their respective arts.