An average movie

I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this flick but since it was directed by Ozu and since it was on YouTube, I thought I might as well check it out. It is always rather strange to see a silent Japanese movie while, back then, in the US and in Europe, they had already started to deliver movies with sound for quite a while already. Since I already had the same experience with ‘Hijôsen no onna’ from the same director, I didn’t surprise me that much this time around though. Concerning the movie itself, I don’t think I’m an Ozu expert, not yet at least, but from all the movies I have seen from the Japanese master so far, it was easily the one which impressed me the least. Sure, as usual with Ozu, there was no real plot which didn’t bother me but the whole thing felt just really too light for my taste. Basically, nothing much was really going on which is a trademark of this director but I also didn’t care much about the characters involved which was much more problematic. The first scene was also rather bewildering and it’s only towards the end that I understood that it was actually some kind of gym class in high school. Seriously, none of these guys looked young enough to play someone in high school. Concerning the rest of the movie, it was basically a genuine slice-of-life and I guess it was a nice time bubble showing how Japanese people used to live back then at beginning of the 30’s but, as far as I was concerned, this movie didn’t really have much else to offer. At least, it was pretty neat to see again the same kid who was so awesome in ‘Otona no miru ehon - Umarete wa mita keredo’, possibly my favorite movie directed by Ozu so far. Anyway, to conclude, in spite of its flaws, it was still a decent watch and it is worth a look, at least, if you are really interested in Yasujirô Ozu's work.