A family moves to a new town in early 1930s Japan. The two pre-teen boys struggle to fit in with the town's future kamikaza pilots and Nanking r@pers. They also find out their blowhard dad isn't such a bigshot at work as he pretends to be.
I found nothing funny about the movies. Maybe Japanese audiences in the 30s thought all the face-pulling by the boys was hilarious.
Legendary Japanese director Ozu had already cranked out more than two dozen films in 5 years when this alleged comedy hit screens. It's easy to be so prolific when you basically never move the camera. As usual, Ozu puts the camera on a tripod and shoots his scene. Then he moves on to the next scene. Shoot enough of those scenes, stitch them together, and you've got another movie full of banal dialogue, dull plotting and unremarkable characters.
For the life of me, I do not understand the appeal of Ozu's work. It's like admiring the factory robots that crank out LEGOs. Sure, the pieces are part of a whole. And once in a while they are put together in a somewhat interesting way. But they are mostly static, plastic, uninteresting and monotonous. I have yet to see Ozu put together a movie that was worth sitting through.
I found nothing funny about the movies. Maybe Japanese audiences in the 30s thought all the face-pulling by the boys was hilarious.
Legendary Japanese director Ozu had already cranked out more than two dozen films in 5 years when this alleged comedy hit screens. It's easy to be so prolific when you basically never move the camera. As usual, Ozu puts the camera on a tripod and shoots his scene. Then he moves on to the next scene. Shoot enough of those scenes, stitch them together, and you've got another movie full of banal dialogue, dull plotting and unremarkable characters.
For the life of me, I do not understand the appeal of Ozu's work. It's like admiring the factory robots that crank out LEGOs. Sure, the pieces are part of a whole. And once in a while they are put together in a somewhat interesting way. But they are mostly static, plastic, uninteresting and monotonous. I have yet to see Ozu put together a movie that was worth sitting through.