Ohayou (1959)
Directed by
Yasujiro Ozu
Writing credits
Kōgo Noda (screenplay) &
Yasujiro Ozu (screenplay)
Genre: Comedy (more)
Plot Summary: This movie takes a look at a very Westernized subarban Japan in the late 50's. It focuses mainly on... (more)
User Rating: 8.0/10 (400 votes)
Cast overview, first billed only:
Keiji Sada .... Heichiro Fukui
Yoshiko Kuga .... Setsuko Arita
Chishu Ryu .... Keitaro Hayashi
Kuniko Miyake .... Tamiko
Haruko Sugimura .... Kikue Haraguchi
Koji Shitara .... Minoru
Masahiko Shimazu .... Isamu
Kyouko Izumi .... Midori Maruyama
Toyoko Takahashi .... Shige Okubo (as Toyo Takahashi)
Sadako Sawamura .... Kayoko Fukui
Eijirō Tono .... Tomizawa
Teruko Nagaoka .... Mrs. Tomizawa
Eiko Miyoshi .... Grandma Haraguchi
Haruo Tanaka .... Haraguchi
Akira Oizumi .... Akira Maruyama
(more)
Also Known As:
Good Morning (1959) (International: English title)
Ohayō (1959) (Japan) (alternative transliteration)
Ohayo (1959) (Japan) (alternative transliteration)
Yasujiro Ozu's Good Morning (1962) (USA)
Runtime: Sweden:97 min / USA:94 min / Germany:90 min
Country: Japan
Language: Japanese
Color: Color
Sound Mix: Mono
Certification: Spain:T
User Comments:
Richard Tasgal (tasgal)
Tel Aviv, Israel
Date: 16 June 2002
Summary: Amused and humane portrait of life in a Tokyo suburb.
Especially in the absence of many lively or engrossing movies from Chekhov's works -- "An Unfinished Piece for Mechanical Piano" and "Country Life" are exceptions -- Yasujiro Ozu strikes me as an excellent representative of many of Chekhov's sensibilities.
Dramas are on human scales: about love, relationships, work, day to day travail and pleasure, and desires to accomplish something in life. Concerned for and affectionate towards his characters, Ozu is mercilessly illusionless. People are creatures of their social and economic and educational backgrounds, but not mechanically or simplisticly so. Emotions are pitch-perfect and lucid -- to the audience, if not always to the characters. Conflicts and passions are tempered by characters' realistic self-perceptions and their practicality, with consequently no implausible hysterics.
Ozu's dramatic best, such as "Floating Weeds" or "Late Spring," compares quite well with the best of Chekhov's plays and stories. In moralizing mode, "Tokyo Story," Ozu descends to melodrama, with good characters being very, very sensitive and altruistic, and bad characters crudely selfish (cf. Chekhov's "The Darling," which is even worse, Tolstoy's idiosyncratic enthusiasm notwithstanding). Although this would be uninteresting in isolation, such types do exist in life, and in the context of Ozu's other movies, it is a worthwhile sample of human variety.
Which brings us to "Ohayo." Reasonably categorized as a comedy, it also resembles Chekhov's comedies, with similar strengths and weaknesses. The movie meanders around a couple plots -- children's conniving to get their parents to buy a television, and a suspected case of embezzling. Though the latter is potentially extremely serious, Ozu follows these conflicts and misunderstandings, and detours into his characters' other doings, with a light, unforced, sometimes quizzical amusement and compassion. This is the great value of the movie, and may, in fact, be its intended point. "Ohayo" is at bottom a comedy and not a deeply serious drama.
(You need to Login or Register to view media files and links)