VHS : Good Morning (AKA Ohayo)
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starring: Keiji Sada, Yoshiko Kuga, Chishu Ryu, Kuniko Miyake, Haruko Sugimuradirected by: Yasujiro Ozu
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Binding: VHS Tape
EAN: 9786304313459
Format: Color, NTSC
ISBN: 6304313454
Label: Homevision
Manufacturer: Homevision
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: Homevision
Release Date: June 06, 2000
Running Time: 93 minutes
Sales Rank: 15753
Studio: Homevision
Theatrical Release Date: 1962-02
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Editorial Review:
Description:
Yasujiro Ozu's family comedies and dramas speak eloquently to audiences around the world. In this biting comedy, Ozu exposes the hypocrisy of the adult world. When a father (Chishu Ryu, Tokyo Story) refuses to buy a television for his sons, the two small boys take a vow of silence, refusing even to say 'good morning' to a neighbor. Soon the gossipy apartment complex where they live is in an uproar--the boys' mother must be holding a grudge against her neighbors! Written by Ozu and longtime collaborator Kogo Noda, this witty film makes keen observations about communication and familial relationships. The charming performances of the young leads and a cast of Ozu regulars make it a thoroughly enjoyable experience.
Amazon.com:
By the time he made Good Morning in 1959, Yasujiro Ozu had completely eliminated camera movement from his uniquely simple but elegant directorial style. He chose instead to emphasize static but meticulously purposeful compositions that rarely, if ever, wavered from their recognizable low-angle perspective. In Good Morning, this observational approach is put to sublime use to establish setting (a late-'50s Tokyo suburb) and to view the world through the eyes of the film's central characters—-two young brothers who take a mutual vow of silence to protest their parents' refusal to buy a TV set. Their father claims that television will create 'a million idiots,' while their mother is angered by the boys' neglect of schoolwork in favor of watching sumo wrestling on a neighbor's TV.
In Ozu's hands, this sublimely simple conflict inspires a comedic exploration of Japan at the dawn of its electronic age, when consumerism and materialism are in vogue, salesmen solicit their wares in constant door-to-door visits, and even the purchase of a washing machine can prompt neighbors into a frenzy of gossipy speculation. Funniest of all are the conspiratorial brothers, who play an amusing variation of 'pull my finger' (proving that even great directors can indulge a fart joke if they choose), and employ their silent strategy with the stubbornness that only children can get away with. Through it all, Ozu develops a handful of intermingling themes of love, communication, goodwill, and the changing of societal traditions. Utterly simple on the surface, Good Morning reveals its complexity in careful proportion, with the affectionate humanity that was Ozu's greatest gift. --Jeff Shannon
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Light-hearted domestic comedy . . .
This is Ozu at his best, a nicely crafted ensemble piece about several suburban families living in close proximity - so much so that their houses seem to open up into each other. Their lives likewise overlap, and the opportunity for a little misunderstanding and misjudgment (as in any good sitcom) quickly has its ripple effect through the whole community. Light hearted and pleasantly humorous, there are no real crises to be resolved. What we get is a celebration of daily domestic life, which is often ... Read More
Rating: - Amusing and satirical exam of communication
Once you have watched an Ozu film, you will recognize it clearly as his. He often casts the same actors to fulfill roles. His films deal with the common everyday life's situations with mothers, fathers, children, families in love, conflict, and death. Ozu first film was in 1929 and his last in 1962.
Use of Red or Blue
Since I have not seen all his films, I recognize in many, an eyecatching motif is the use of colors, namely blue and red. In Good Morning, almost every scene here ... Read More
Rating:  - Ozu, Most Japanese of the Japanese directors
Ozu has been called the most Japanese of all Japanese directors, and for good reason, he is. Ohayo (Good Morning) is Ozu at his Japanese best. There is a misunderstanding among the neighborhood ladies. Some club money has turned up missing. The misunderstanding is compounded by two boys, who after an argument with their parents, are told to shut up. The boys want a television set, the parents do not. The boys take their parents admonition to shut up to the extreme, they stop speaking to everybody, even the ... Read More
Rating: - Ignorant the previous review
Who obviously knows nothing about Ozu or his canon of films. This is one of Ozu's pure comedies, and one of his best. Hopefully Criterion will re-issue it with more features.
Rating: - Delightful Sitcom Bears Ozu's Depth and Then Some
Flatulence seems to be an odd way of lending a framework to a film, but leave it to filmmaking master Yasujiro Ozu to use it as a metaphor for the meaninglessness of "small talk" between people who cannot be candid with one another. The title of this 1959 movie, "Ohayô (Good Morning)", is indeed the salutation but also from Ozu's perspective, a symbolic expression of how the Japanese avoid confrontation and put a strong value on etiquette. One of Ozu's late period color films, this is a very cute comedy which ... Read More
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