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It's a slightly odd film even for the Japanese but it was Yasujiro Ozu's first after a gap of five years after the war. A poor young boy follows him back to another home as he seems be have been abandoned by his father who it seems was looking for work. Back at his tenement housing he hopes that someone will look after him. Sees nobody keen and then they get a widow to take him on. Clearly she is not happy and several times she 'shoos' him away just like she might a pigeon. She reluctantly gives him the night but as he wets the bed and in the morning she puts his bedding on the line but amazingly, she simply gives him a fan and has him stand there to dry it. There is no talk about the war although there is talk of 'orphans' and she doesn't really want the boy but gradually she is not as hard on him but it is strange that she doesn't wash him, even though he clearly has fleas. There is a sad ending and we see the Saigo statue in Ueno Park where orphans play beside their popular hero and his dog.

It's such a shame that Ozu wasn't more of an outdoor director, because I've just found out his landscape shots are some of the most beautiful I have ever seen. This is one of Ozu's most beautiful movies.

As always, Chôko Iida is absolutely amazing. It's a beautiful story, with a lot of light, funny moments and tender, emotional ones as well. It's not very different from Ozu's pre-war movies, but as such it's equally beautiful. I was somehow disappointed for Ozu not exploring even more the tenement's habitants, but overall I was satisfied with Chôko Iida performance and the tender story of the bond between her and a child.

A beautiful little film by Ozu, only 72 minutes long, about a young boy who was apparently abandoned by his father. He shacks up with Tané (exquisitely played by Choko Iida) for the first night, but when she can't find his father, he becomes a permanent fixture in her household. At first, she's bitter and mean about it. A middle-age widow, she believes, shouldn't have to deal with snotty-nosed bedwetters. But eventually her resolve weakens and she finds that she has missed a lot by never having had a child. The plotline is predictable and a little cliche (it's the kind of movie that Vittorio de Sica would be criticized relentlessly by trendy critics if he had directed it), but the breezy style of Ozu makes everything wonderful. It's really funny at times, and always very touching. I think it's the most enjoyable Ozu film, with the possible exception of I Was Born But..., that I've ever seen. 9/10.

Slightly different from the Ozu's I've seen before, but still a rather wonderful little film. Its his first film after the war. Only Ozu could film the desolate streetscape of a devastated Japan and make it seem so homely and normal. Every scene is magnificently composed - the first few shots, showing ramshackle homes framed by a wirescape of crooked electric cables sets the scene perfectly. Even the simplest domestic scenes are presented so beautifully they give a dignity to the ordinary people represented in the film.

The story is (as usual with Ozu) as simple as can be. A small flea-bitten boy, a stray, follows a man home, and a small group of neighbours argue amongst themselves what to do with him. He is left with a bad tempered widow. What happens is familiar - he slowly melts her heart. But how its done is not so familiar. The boy is never shown as particularly lovable - he's a quiet bedwetter 'pees like a horse' as the woman says. There is little or none of the saccharine you'd expect from other film makers, Japanese or otherwise. Its just shown very straight, with no sentimentality. Oh, and its a comedy - some lovely, very funny scenes. The acting is fantastic. One particular scene, where the neighbours accompany a singer with a rhythm tapped with chopsticks on places is brilliant, it alone is worth getting the DVD to see it.

The only let down is the ending, which becomes a little preachy. But its forgivable in the context, just 2 years after the end of the war, where Ozu perhaps felt he should give the audience a bit of a message (although as all scripts went through rigid censorship at the time we can't be certain it was all his idea). There is an obvious 'we should all be nicer to each other' message in the movie, and it doesn't shirk for a moment from the poverty at the time, despite the light hearted tone. Its hard to put yourself in the shoes of the contemporary audience, but they must have been heartened to see people so real to their own experience on the screen, with no false optimism or over-dramatic pessimism, just a very real slice of life.

Japanese drama from Shochiku and director Yasujiro Ozu. Poor second-hand merchant O-Tane (Choko Iida) is put in a tough spot when her neighbors bring her a very young boy (Hohi Aoki) and ask her to take care of him. It seems the child was abandoned, and after searching for some time, no family for him could be found. O-Tane angrily agrees, but her grumpy exterior slowly softens as she spends more time with the quiet child. Also featuring Chishu Ryu, Reikichi Kawamura, Takeshi Sakamoto, Mitsuko Yoshikawa, and Eitaro Ozawa.

This was Ozu's first film after a five year break during WW2. It seems a warm return home, as his style is intact, and many of the same familiar Shochiku players return. Ozu regular Iida gets a spotlight role as the cranky old widow who slowly warms to becoming a surrogate mother. The film is also of interest for its glimpse of post-war Japan, and the struggles and hardships of maintaining a life in the rubble left behind. My only complaint would that, at 71 minutes, it's a bit too short.