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ozu's ultimate triumph of style over substance, a slick gangster/juvenile delinquency picture starring a very young kinuyo tanaka. tanaka's the girl who's an office worker whose boss has a fondness for sexual harassment (in many ways it's a similar role to the one isuzu yamada played in mizoguchi's "osaka story" a couple years later). she meets and falls for a local thug and they turn to petty crime. from what i've read ozu barely remembers this one, one of the many potboilers he churned out in the 20s and 30s, but it still shows he had fun making it. the film may come as a shock to those who are used to the rather static camerawork of ozu's later films - lots of cool dollies, lush photography, great noir-ish lighting, and a meticulous attention to minor detail. ozu's primary influence at this point in his career seems to be joseph von sternberg, there's an extraordinary amount of clutter in almost every frame (look at the later films and you'll see that sternberg's one of the few western influences ozu never quite discarded). still, lots of "pillow shots," direct closeups, along with some low-level shots for those who like to point out that ozu only ever had one camera position. great fun, even if it is silent and i can't read japanese intertitles (a subplot about a friend in trouble lost me).

DRAGNET GIRL is one of Yasujiro Ozu's early works, a criminal melodrama with a few proto-noir touches. Its story is pretty standard and features a love triangle between a criminal seeking to make good, a respectable young woman, and a moll with a heart of gold. However, those interested in how the gangster picture manifested outside of the United States during its original 1930s golden age will be very interested in this film, not to mention devotees of silent film and Ozu.

Josef von Sternberg doesn't get as much mention as Frank Borzage or Ernst Lubitsch as an early Ozu influence, but those familiar with the dense arrangement of objects onscreen in Sternberg films may see the resemblance in both early and late Ozu films. This moody, expressionist pre-noir potboiler exhibits plenty of inspired clutter (most memorably the RCA Victor dog) and stylistic fluorishes (tracking shots, pull shots, and memorable use of shadow) as it tells the story of a gangster and his good-girl-gone-bad moll (Kinuyo Tanaka) as they experience an spiritual awakening through the good graces of an innocent girl. Redemption seems to be a recurring motif in Ozu's gangster movies (WALK CHEEFULLY, THAT NIGHT'S WIFE), and one wonders if bad guy heroes turning themselves in is a convention of the genre or indicative of Ozu's feelings about the criminal life he was assigned to depict. Whatever the case, the climax (involving the single gunshot fired in the entire existing Ozu canon) is as suspenseful and emotionally powerful as anything Ozu filmed.

A gangster tries to find redemption with the inadvertent help of an innocent shop girl and his jealous girlfriend will do anything to keep him.

Who knew there was the Japanese jazz scene, with men hanging out, smoking cigarettes and dressing like hoodlums -- it all seems so American, much like Ozu's "Walk Cheerfully" made Japanese gangsters circa 1930 look American. Maybe the "American gangster" is not such a strictly American thing after all.

Of Ozu's silent crime films, this is the one that seems to be the most well known. At least, it is the only one that actually has a Wikipedia page (as of May 2015). This period needs more examination. There is more to world cinema in the 1930s than what most of us take for granted.

As this started I realised that it was a silent film and noted later that even though I have seen many of Ozu's films, never the silent ones of which there are at least twenty, but never even other Japanese silents. This is a wonderfully clear blu-ray from BFI and the photography splendid. I understand that Ozu loved the gangsters but I have to say that although in the gym is well shot but the boxers we never see them fighting and although all the men wear their fedoras and coats there is never any great action. We also have the girls, the gangster's moll and the good girl working in a shop, she wants her brother to leave the gang, she tries to get the gang boss to influence him and she falls in love with him. It is interesting but even though it is trying to be American, with all the posters and signage and the wisecracking and gun-toting it is really still very Japanese.

Kinuyo Tanaka works in an office, where she has caught the attention of the boss' son. She means to take him for a bundle, because after office hours, she's the moll of Joji Oka, a washed-up boxer and gangster. However, when Sumiko Mizukubo, a nice, old-fashioned shop girl, asks Joji to let her brother, Koji Mitsui out of their gang, the two lovers see a vision of a decent life. Is it beyond their reach?

This movie gives the impression that Ozu was trying to shoot a movie half in the style of Joseph von Sternberg and half in the stye of Frank Borzage -- what would happen if George Bancroft in THUNDERBOLT met a Janet Gaynor character? Visually, it's very Germanic, with lots of half-lit faces and many tracking shots, nothing at all like the style Ozu would adopt after the War. The set design is typical for Ozu in this period, with lots of American posters on the walls.

It has often been stated (which is a slovenly way to not have to cite sources) that Film Noir arose from filtering German expressionism through French Poetic Realism and American Pulp Mystery. Although it did not begin to take shape until the late 1930s, nor flower until the mid-1940s, there's an interesting early sideline in this movie, complete with a femme fatale who leads people to their doom -- who is a nice girl!

I confess that, if the film's technical specifications didn't assure me that it was an Ozu film, I would never say so.

It's a replica of an American gangster film. The actors dress in a Western style, drive American cars, drink, smoke and dance in an American style, they dedicate themselves to boxing and gambling, they have criminal gangs, imitating those from the Prohibition era in America. The workshops and bars have signboards in English, the posters on the walls have Jack Dempsey and "All Quiet on the Western Front" (curiously in French). Anyway, it's all so American that I went to check whether the film had been shot in the USA. But no, it was in a studio in Tokyo.

However, it is evident that all this American decadence is presented as a world of vice, perdition, and immorality. The only innocent and ethically elevated character, in the entire film, is a young cashier, who, not surprisingly, wears a kimono and traditional wooden clogs. She is the only character who represents traditional, upright, honorable Japan. Everything else is imported from the West and is morally perverse, decadent, criminal.

Interestingly, the honest simplicity of this young woman, a unique example, in a lost society, is enough to cause a crisis of conscience in the protagonists and lead them to the redemption of their sinful lives.

This moral vision, appeal to good traditional values, is the only typical characteristic of Ozu, which emerges from the film.

The rest, more than an imitation of Hollywood, is a demonization of the Western and particularly the American way of life. In the historical context in which the film appears - 1933 was the year of the Japanese invasion of China, but hostilities had already begun in 1931, with the invasion of Manchuria and the progressive internationalization of the conflict, with the intervention of the allied powers, British, Russians and Americans, which would last until the end of the Second World War - I cannot help but see this very vehement criticism of Western society as an act of propaganda, of support for the Japanese imperial military campaign and of demonization and discrediting of Western enemies of Japan, extolling the virtues of Japanese tradition, against American and Western vices.

Surely the weakest work I've seen, by the renowned Japanese director.

I've enjoyed few silent films as much as this wonderful gangster movie from none other than Yasujiro Ozu, best known for his brilliantly ponderous family dramas of the talkie era. The silent films of Ozu, whose sound films are considered so very "eastern" by western viewers, are eye-brow raisingly informed by Hollywood aesthetics. Indeed, some of his early crime films such as this one, perhaps invented important aspects of what would become known as Hollywood genre tropes. A tale of the intimate lives and feelings of seemingly hardened underworld denizens, Dragnet Girl discovers the world of Noir years before John Huston in Maltese Falcon or, for that matter, Marcel Carne in Le Jour se Leve, walked on that ground. And while Dragnet Girl precedes the films that were to be labeled Noir, it also in many ways transcends them. For Ozu has no use for the dreary fatalism that would characterize the American, German or French crime film. For these characters, these criminals, are not simplistically doomed. Their paths are shaped more by their feelings for each other than their violation of any moral code. This makes the narrative truly unpredictable and moving.

I've watched a couple of very early Yasujiro Ozu films recently, and wasn't thrilled with them. Dragnet Girl was the last of his silents I wanted to check out, and I was very glad to find this one was really solid. I feel like the director is starting to come into his own here, even if the crime elements of this story are at odds with the more grounded dramas he became best known for making (though there are sequences of Dragnet Girl that do foreshadow the focus on drama to come; it's not "just" a crime/gangster movie).

Maybe the first couple of years of Ozu's filmmaking career were a little shaky, but by the time he got to 1933, he was capable of making some good stuff... and then obviously got even better by the time the 1950s came around. The plot here can be a little muddled, but there are some emotional moments that ring true, and I think it's shot really well for a film of its time, making it an early Ozu film that feels pretty easy to recommend.

The story follows four characters: Tokiko (Kinuyo Tanaka), a gang moll who works a legit job as a secretary at a large firm so that she can get extra cash from the company's president's son, money that she uses to keep Joji (Joji Oka), a former boxer turned minor criminal gang boss. When young hothead Hiroshi (Koji Mitsui) joins the gang, his nice-girl sister Kazuko (Sumiko Mizukubo) implores Joji to help set her brother back on the right track. Joji starts to fall for Kazuko, which causes Tokiko a lot of grief and sets her on an unpredictable path.

This is Ozu's most technically accomplished film to date, even if he is still making them in the silent format. His camerawork and use of evocative shadowing are notable. Tanaka gives a splendid performance as a complicated character making rash decisions that only make sense coming from someone who is desperately vulnerable. Ozu continues to place American movie posters in his settings, this time featuring some from The Champ and All Quiet On the Western Front. Sharp-eyed viewers may notice Ozu regular Chishu Ryu in a small bit as a cop. Recommended. (

Interestingly enough, by the time Ozu had made Dragnet Girl, he'd already made his first sound film, Until the Day We Meet Again, but that's lost to time. I only bring it up because, like a few of his late silent films before this, Dragnet Girl is screaming to have been shot in sound. There is so much dialogue delivered in intertitles that it almost feels like a film that was shot for sound and the only remaining copy is one delivered to silent-only cinemas. That being said, it's also a return to the more sedate dramas Ozu had been making for years before the brief left turn that was Woman of Tokyo. It still trends a bit more towards melodrama, especially in comparison to Walk Cheerfully of which this feels almost like a remake. That feeling is definitely going to get more common as the years go on, though.

Tokiko (Kinuyo Tanaka) works in an office for the president's son, Okazaki (Yasuo Nanjo), who gives her a big ruby ring and obviously wants more from her than just an employee/employer relationship. She has a boyfriend, Joji (Joji Oka), a mid-level gangster who wants to knock off Okazaki for whatever he can get, but Tokiko doesn't want to lose her job. Joji's world goes sideways when Hiroshi (Koji Mitsui) moves into the neighborhood. A student, he wants to join Joji's gang, successfully gets in, and refuses to walk away despite his sister's, Kazuko (Sumiko Mizukubo), insistence that he keep to his studies as a university student. The plot moves with Joji falling for innocent Kazuko, deciding to protect Hiroshi from the worst of the gang's illegal activities, and trying to hide his infatuation from Tokiko.

Much like Walk Cheerfully, the film is ultimately about a gangster deciding to go straight because of a good girl on the outside. There are obvious differences in terms of the particulars, this movie spending a lot more time on internal gang politics, especially when Hiroshi tries to join the gang. However, what is the same is how Ozu approaches the dramatic shifts in character over time. It's not about being showy (though there's more crying here than in most Ozu films, never going nearly as far as the end of Woman of Tokyo) but about quiet moments as people reflect on changes that have happened to them.

And there's also this mature, Japanese sense of acceptance of fate and change which combines somewhat awkwardly with a more Western attitude of fighting it. Ozu eventually chooses one side over the other (the Japanese), so the conflict between outlooks resolves, at least, smoothing over the decision.

But, I'm jumping ahead of myself. We have to get through the quiet realizations of changes, the realizations of unsurmountable obstacles and untraversable gulfs between people, and the acceptance of a new way of things. The acceptance of change. Seeing someone grow away from you. Seeing that an old life can't continue because someone can't do it anymore. All told through glances as people see the change in each other. It's always surprisingly compelling.

I just find it slightly unfortunate that it's in this movie that requires gangster tropes. The early stuff is too removed from any violence, being all talk. The later stuff feels like either a sop to convention or Ozu finding space for a Hitchcock tribute (it very easily could be the latter, dude was obviously a huge movie nerd). I just don't think the early parts are as interesting as they should be and the later parts clash with the larger efforts of the final act to be a quiet, Ozu finale.

Still, the overall package is the kind of solid work one comes to expect from Ozu. The characters are well-drawn, the situations well-considered, especially regarding the thematic thrust of the piece as a whole, and the emotional catharsis earned. It's just obvious that he was working quickly from a place of not extraordinary power where he needed to bend to studio demands about genre, mixing with his own movie fandom. The overarching theme of Ozu's style and technique is refinement, and we're only starting to see it work.

Unique filmography, romance, character building, framing, actions scenes on screen and off with excellent scenes of "show don't tell".

A hidden gem masterpiece of the 1930s. I was impressed with how I never expected the twists and ending. It really kept me wondering.

There was a lot of cheeky moments between characters that was really funny, and the script was well acted, paced, thought provoking.

I read one of the lead women later became a film director herself which I found fascinating and researching the film farther I feel this should be shown at more silent film screenings. Classic noir, lots of fun!

A gangster with feelings, mirrored in the young boxer who is eager to drop out of school to join the gang: boyish impertinence and bravado in this part, a recalcitrant code of honor among thieves, the common tropes of the gangster film.

The boxer's quiet, unassuming sister, mirrored in the gangster's moll who gradually opts out of the glamorous life in favor of true happiness: deep female selfless intuition, enduring, indomitable caring.

The four of them are intertwined in a dance between many different faces for the one life - all of them fit but some make you agonize. The whole plays out like a response to Sternberg's Underworld, a prototypical gangster film that culminated in a similarly sacrificial denouement. As is common with these films, having experienced the thrills of an outcast life, we're meant to leave the theater rehabilitated into common social mind.

This is fine and the film generally slick and efficient, but I want to direct your attention to these specifics.

• one is the shot of a chrome plate from inside a moving car, that reflects distortions of the surrounding world as the car speeds ahead. This encapsulates both cinematic eye and internal mind, modern and anxious, that give rise both to events depicted and the type of film that frames them.

• the other is the series of static shots that end the film, with cops signaling each to each that the chase is over and departing and the quiet interior of the empty house greeting the first morning light. Now Ozu's journey is from superficial Western adoration (except for the sister everyone is dressed in western garb here, the brother has taken up boxing, the whole recalls Western film above all) onto a discovery of a contemplative Japanese heart. The transition is vividly exemplified here: from the neon marquees of tumultuous movie night into the stillness of morning. We'll see a lot more of this in the future.