This review also has some mild spoilers for the movie "An autumn afernoon", you have been warned:
"Early Summer" is a movie very similar to Ozu's later work "An Autumn Afternoon" which I saw a bit earlier than this movie. Both deal with families that somewhat break up because the daughter of the family is marrying into someone else's family and you see how the family member deal with this situation. While they have a similar theme I ended up really enjoying "An Autumn Afternoon" while I found "Early Summer" rather boring, it had a little bit going on but especially towards the end it became increasingly bland. I think this comparison is very good in showing the interest I get while watching some of ozus movies ("An Autumn Afternoon and "floating weeds") and the boredom I get while watching others (Tokyo stories, late spring). Early summer pretty much falls right in between them. For comparison: An Autumn Afternoon is a movie clearly dedicated to the change the father of the family experiences while considering giving up on his precious daughter who cared for him since his wife died. There are a lot of hints in the movie about the father being fond of the good old times and not wanting to let go on some things. Ultimately all the character who are at first against change have to realize that it is the best for everyone and cannot be avoided and everyone matures in that regards towards the end of the movie. I also find nice that the daughter could not marry the man she actually wanted to marry. You know, not everyone could choose back then and this gives you a bit of a touch of realism. The movie also had a bunch of character with actual charisma. You had the friend of the father who always boasted about how nice it is to have a wife that is 20-30 years younger than he is. You have the old teacher who has a little bit of a drinking problem. You got the wife of the son who is always snapping and complaining about money. "Early Summer" on the other hand has very little of that. The focus of the story is not the old father who loses his daughter but the daughter, and the movie doesn't really have a message it tries to tell by hinting at its audience. There is no sense of maturing from any of the characters and the ending felt rather abrupt. You also don't have the magnitude of charismatic and interesting characters. The only few character interaction I found rather special where the conversations between the old school friends of the main character, some of whom are married and some of whom aren't and you got a little bit of a fighting there. So overall I would say that Ozu definitely became a better filmmaker towards the end of his life, with "An Autumn Afternoon" probably being the best of his movies. His very similar early version of the same idea named "Early summer" is a nice watch but resembles rather his earlier movies (Tokyo Story and Late spring) rather than the complex take on family life that is given in his later work. Also an Autumn Afternoon had better actors with Shima Iwashita and Marko Okada being excellent actors who establish themselves outside of Ozus movies while Setsuko Hara most famous works all seem to have centred around Ozu and I don't find her to be that good to be honest.
"Early Summer" is a movie very similar to Ozu's later work "An Autumn Afternoon" which I saw a bit earlier than this movie. Both deal with families that somewhat break up because the daughter of the family is marrying into someone else's family and you see how the family member deal with this situation. While they have a similar theme I ended up really enjoying "An Autumn Afternoon" while I found "Early Summer" rather boring, it had a little bit going on but especially towards the end it became increasingly bland. I think this comparison is very good in showing the interest I get while watching some of ozus movies ("An Autumn Afternoon and "floating weeds") and the boredom I get while watching others (Tokyo stories, late spring). Early summer pretty much falls right in between them. For comparison: An Autumn Afternoon is a movie clearly dedicated to the change the father of the family experiences while considering giving up on his precious daughter who cared for him since his wife died. There are a lot of hints in the movie about the father being fond of the good old times and not wanting to let go on some things. Ultimately all the character who are at first against change have to realize that it is the best for everyone and cannot be avoided and everyone matures in that regards towards the end of the movie. I also find nice that the daughter could not marry the man she actually wanted to marry. You know, not everyone could choose back then and this gives you a bit of a touch of realism. The movie also had a bunch of character with actual charisma. You had the friend of the father who always boasted about how nice it is to have a wife that is 20-30 years younger than he is. You have the old teacher who has a little bit of a drinking problem. You got the wife of the son who is always snapping and complaining about money. "Early Summer" on the other hand has very little of that. The focus of the story is not the old father who loses his daughter but the daughter, and the movie doesn't really have a message it tries to tell by hinting at its audience. There is no sense of maturing from any of the characters and the ending felt rather abrupt. You also don't have the magnitude of charismatic and interesting characters. The only few character interaction I found rather special where the conversations between the old school friends of the main character, some of whom are married and some of whom aren't and you got a little bit of a fighting there. So overall I would say that Ozu definitely became a better filmmaker towards the end of his life, with "An Autumn Afternoon" probably being the best of his movies. His very similar early version of the same idea named "Early summer" is a nice watch but resembles rather his earlier movies (Tokyo Story and Late spring) rather than the complex take on family life that is given in his later work. Also an Autumn Afternoon had better actors with Shima Iwashita and Marko Okada being excellent actors who establish themselves outside of Ozus movies while Setsuko Hara most famous works all seem to have centred around Ozu and I don't find her to be that good to be honest.