Late Spring

One of the most powerful of Yasujiro Ozu’s family portraits, Late Spring (Banshun) tells the story of a widowed father who feels compelled to marry off his beloved only daughter. Eminent Ozu players Chishu Ryu and Setsuko Hara command this poignant tale of love and loss in postwar Japan, which remains as potent today as ever—and a strong justification for its maker’s inclusion in the pantheon of cinema’s greatest directors.

Japan
1949
108 minutes
Black & White
1.33:1
Japanese
Spine #331

Special Features

New high-definition digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition
Audio commentary by Richard Peña, program director of New York’s Film Society of Lincoln Center
Tokyo-ga (1985), filmmaker Wim Wenders’s ninety-two-minute documentary about director Yasujiro Ozu
PLUS: essays by critic Michael Atkinson and Japanese-film historian Donald Richie, as well as Ozu’s thoughts on screenwriter Kogo Noda

New cover by Neil Kellerhouse

Blu‑ray 1 Disc $31.96 SRP: $39.95

Digital Options

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Special Features

New high-definition digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition
Audio commentary by Richard Peña, program director of New York’s Film Society of Lincoln Center
Tokyo-ga (1985), filmmaker Wim Wenders’s ninety-two-minute documentary about director Yasujiro Ozu
PLUS: essays by critic Michael Atkinson and Japanese-film historian Donald Richie, as well as Ozu’s thoughts on screenwriter Kogo Noda

New cover by Neil Kellerhouse

Cast & Credits

Cast

Chishu Ryu: Shukichi Somiya
Setsuko Hara: Noriko Somiya
Yumeji Tsukioka: Aya Kitagawa
Haruko Sugimura: Masa Taguchi
Hohi Aoki: Katsuyoshi Taguchi
Jun Usami: Shoichi Hattori
Kuniko Miyake: Akiko Miwa
Masao Mishima: Jo Onodera
Yoshiko Tsubouchi: Kiku
Yoko Katsuragi: Misako
Toyoko Takahashi: Shige
Ichiro Shimizu: Bar owner of Takigawa
Jun Tanizaki: Seizo Hayashi
Yoko Benisawa: Teacher at tea ceremony

Credits

Director: Yasujiro Ozu
Script: Kogo Noda
Script: Yasujiro Ozu
Based on the novel by: Kazuo Hirotsu
Cinematography: Yuharu Atsuta
Producer: Takeshi Yamamoto
Art director: Tatsuo Hamada
Lighting: Haruo Isono
Editing: Yoshiyasu Hamamura
Music: Senji Ito

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Explore

Yasujiro Ozu

Writer, Director

Yasujiro Ozu has often been called the “most Japanese” of Japan’s great directors. From 1927, the year of his debut for Shochiku studios, to 1962, when, a year before his death at age sixty, he made his final film, Ozu consistently explored the rhythms and tensions of a country trying to reconcile modern and traditional values, especially as played out in relations between the generations. Though he is best known for his sobering 1953 masterpiece Tokyo Story, the apex of his portrayals of the changing Japanese family, Ozu began his career in the thirties, in a more comedic, though still socially astute, mode, with such films as I Was Born, But . . . and Dragnet Girl. He then gradually mastered the domestic drama during the war years and afterward, employing both physical humor, as in Good Morning, and distilled drama, as in Late Spring, Early Summer, and Floating Weeds. Though Ozu was discovered relatively late in the Western world, his trademark rigorous style—static shots, often from the vantage point of someone sitting low on a tatami mat; patient pacing; moments of transcendence as represented by the isolated beauty of everyday objects—has been enormously influential among directors seeking a cinema of economy and poetry.