Ohayô (1959)

Director:

Yasujiro Ozu

Writers:

Kôgo Noda (screenplay) &
Yasujiro Ozu (screenplay)

Release Date:

February 1962 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy

Plot:

Two boys go into a silence strike to pressurize their parents into buying them a TV set.

Plot Keywords:

Japan | Television | 1950s | Remake | Japanese

Cast

Keiji Sada	...	Heichiro Fukui
Yoshiko Kuga	...	Setsuko Arita
Chishû Ryû	...	Keitaro Hayashi
Kuniko Miyake	...	Tamiko
Haruko Sugimura	...	Kikue Haraguchi
Koji Shitara	...	Minoru
Masahiko Shimazu	...	Isamu
Kyouko Izumi	...	Midori Maruyama
Toyo Takahashi	...	Shige Okubo
Sadako Sawamura	...	Kayoko Fukui
Eijirô Tôno	...	Tomizawa
Teruko Nagaoka	...	Mrs. Tomizawa
Eiko Miyoshi	...	Grandma Haraguchi
Haruo Tanaka	...	Haraguchi
Akira Oizumi	...	Akira Maruyama

Also Known As:

Good Morning (International: English title)
Ohayou (Japan) (alternative transliteration)
Yasujiro Ozu's Good Morning (USA)

Runtime:

94 min

Country:

Japan

Language:

Japanese

Color:

Color

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Portugal:M/12 | UK:U (1975) | Australia:G | Spain:T

Company:

Shôchiku Eiga

Quotes:

Isamu: A mess, isn't it?
Minoru: Fun, isn't it?

Movie Connections:

References The Defiant Ones (1958)

A Funny and Extremely Serious Comedy

For viewers who have seen only one or two of Ozu's statelier films -- say, "Tokyo Story" or "Equinox Flower" -- "Good Morning" will be a surprise. Two children take a vow of silence to coerce their parents into buying a television set: that's pretty much the whole plot. But what happens as a result affects almost every aspect of life in the nondescript, gossipy, elbow-to-elbow suburb in which the boys' family lives.

This is a comedy, and like all good comedies it's very serious. The boys' act of rebellion is very un-Japanese, and it threatens many of the politely ritualistic social behaviors that mask and deflect the tensions in Japanese society. Whole alliances among the village's women teeter and threaten to topple. The family's authority structure is upended, with the all-powerful father crumbling against the stubborn silence of two little boys.

What wins in the end is love -- or rather (Ozu must have found this particularly funny) love and television. The resolution will probably tear you up (it has brought moisture to the eyes of everyone I've seen it with) but it represents enormous changes in Japanese society -- the collapse of patriarchal authority, the invasion of foreign culture, and especially English-language culture, and the inexorable rise of that great leveler of aesthetics, television. Ozu saw the future, and he wasn't in it.

So naturally, he presents all this in a gentle, even sweet-natured comedy. There may be greater Ozu films, but it's hard to think of one I actually like more than "Good Morning."