IMDb RATING
7.8/10
4.9K
YOUR RATING
A businessman clashes with his elder daughter over her choice of a husband.A businessman clashes with his elder daughter over her choice of a husband.A businessman clashes with his elder daughter over her choice of a husband.
- Awards
- 2 wins
- Director
- Writers
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaThis was Yasujirô Ozu's first film in color.
- GoofsWhen Setsuko's suitor Masahiko visits her father Wataru's office to ask to marry her, strands of the younger man's hair hang down over his forehead, but when they begin their conversation all his hair is neat and in place.
- ConnectionsFeatured in Siskel & Ebert: Patriot Games/Monster in a Box/Class Act/Zentropa (1992)
- SoundtracksHome, Sweet Home
Written by H.R. Bishop (uncredited)
Featured review
"Ever with us are the dreams of our youth."
This line uttered by Ozu favorite, Chishu Ryu, toward the end of the story helps sum up the mixture of comedy and melancholy that pervades this excellent film. The other reviewers have well described the amusing irony of Wataru Harayama's (Shin Saburi) avuncular support of his friends' daughters' desires to marry for love but his shocked resistance when he finds out about his own daughter's similar desires. But alongside Ozu's depiction of the daughters' plans for their futures is that of the fathers' nostalgia for their pasts.
Harayama, Ryu's character Mikami, and their other friends from middle school days have stayed in touch and regularly compare notes about their carefree days before their own arranged marriages, workday routines, and worries about their daughters. In one scene of a class reunion they wear uniforms, sing songs, and recite elegiac poems. And the one wife we meet, Harayama's (brilliantly played by Kinuyo Tanaka), who has stoically borne her husband's discontent all these years, sees her patience rewarded as she becomes the bridge between him and his daughter.
One other note of reality--Yukiko, the delightfully liberated daughter of a family friend who conspires with Harayama's daughter to play a crucial trick on Harayama, was played by Fujiko Yamamoto who lit up every scene she was in. I wondered why I hadn't heard more about her, and found out from Wikipedia that at the height of her popularity in 1963, when her contract was up for renewal, she asked for some better terms and the head of her studio (Daiei) not only fired her but invoked an agreement with the other studios to prevent her from being hired by any of them. She never made another film. That's another glimpse of old Japan.
Harayama, Ryu's character Mikami, and their other friends from middle school days have stayed in touch and regularly compare notes about their carefree days before their own arranged marriages, workday routines, and worries about their daughters. In one scene of a class reunion they wear uniforms, sing songs, and recite elegiac poems. And the one wife we meet, Harayama's (brilliantly played by Kinuyo Tanaka), who has stoically borne her husband's discontent all these years, sees her patience rewarded as she becomes the bridge between him and his daughter.
One other note of reality--Yukiko, the delightfully liberated daughter of a family friend who conspires with Harayama's daughter to play a crucial trick on Harayama, was played by Fujiko Yamamoto who lit up every scene she was in. I wondered why I hadn't heard more about her, and found out from Wikipedia that at the height of her popularity in 1963, when her contract was up for renewal, she asked for some better terms and the head of her studio (Daiei) not only fired her but invoked an agreement with the other studios to prevent her from being hired by any of them. She never made another film. That's another glimpse of old Japan.
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- JSL26
- May 6, 2021
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Details
- Release date
- Country of origin
- Language
- Also known as
- Flores de equinoccio
- Filming locations
- Ginza, Chuo-ku, Tokyo, Japan(Seen in pillow shots.)
- Production company
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
Box office
- Gross worldwide
- $18,039
- Runtime1 hour 58 minutes
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 1.37 : 1
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