Yasujiro Ozu

Good Morning

Good Morning

A lighthearted take on director Yasujiro Ozu’s perennial theme of the challenges of inter­generational relationships, Good Morning tells the story of two young boys who stop speaking in protest after their parents refuse to buy a television set. Ozu weaves a wealth of subtle gags through a family portrait as rich as those of his dramatic films, mocking the foibles of the adult world through the eyes of his child protagonists. Shot in stunning color and set in a suburb of Tokyo where housewives gossip about the neighbors’ new washing machine and unemployed husbands look for work as door-to-door salesmen, this charming comedy refashions Ozu’s own silent classic I Was Born, But . . . to gently satirize consumerism in postwar Japan.

Share

Film Info

  • Japan
  • 1959
  • 93 minutes
  • Color
  • 1.33:1
  • Japanese
  • Spine #84

BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

  • New 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
  • I Was Born, But . . ., Yasujiro Ozu’s 1932 silent comedy, with a 2008 score by Donald Sosin
  • New interview with film scholar David Bordwell
  • New video essay on Ozu’s use of humor by critic David Cairns
  • Fragment of A Straightforward Boy, a 1929 silent film by Ozu
  • PLUS: An essay by critic Jonathan Rosenbaum

New cover by Tatsuro Kiuchi

Purchase Options

BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

  • New 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
  • I Was Born, But . . ., Yasujiro Ozu’s 1932 silent comedy, with a 2008 score by Donald Sosin
  • New interview with film scholar David Bordwell
  • New video essay on Ozu’s use of humor by critic David Cairns
  • Fragment of A Straightforward Boy, a 1929 silent film by Ozu
  • PLUS: An essay by critic Jonathan Rosenbaum

New cover by Tatsuro Kiuchi

Good Morning
Cast
Masahiko Shimazu
Isamu
Koji Shidara
Minoru
Kuniko Miyake
Tamiko Hayash
Yoshiko Kuga
Setsuko Arita
Chishu Ryu
Keitaro Hayashi
Haruko Sugimura
Kikue Haraguchi
Credits
Director
Yasujiro Ozu
Screenplay
Yasujiro Ozu
Screenplay
Kogo Noda
Cinematography
Yushun Atsuta
Music
Toshiro Mayuzumi
Editing
Yoshiyasu Hamamura

Related Films

1/4
2/4
3/4
4/4

Current

Ozu and the Delicate Art of the Fart Gag
Ozu and the Delicate Art of the Fart Gag
A portrait of childhood, domestic life, and consumerism in postwar suburban Tokyo, Yasujiro Ozu’s Good Morning is one of the Japanese master’s most charming and subtly incisive comedies. Made in 1959, this loose update of the director’s own 193…
Sneak Peeks — May 22, 2017
Good Morning: Structures and Strictures in Suburbia
Good Morning: Structures and Strictures in Suburbia

Yasujiro Ozu’s ode to childhood interweaves observations of human behavior with the simple surfaces of quotidian life in Tokyo.

By Jonathan Rosenbaum

Essays — May 14, 2017
Good Morning
Good Morning
Good Morning is the wildcard in Yasujiro Ozu’s career, the film that looks least like all his others, and one of the few where he sees the world through childrens’ eyes rather than those of an old man.For many years, Ozu’s films were rarely see…

By Rick Prelinger

Essays — Aug 29, 2000
Steven Yeun’s Top 10
Steven Yeun’s Top 10

An international star who has delivered acclaimed performances in The Walking Dead, Okja, and Burning, Steven Yeun tells us about the “wise grace” of Tokyo Story, the brutality of RoboCop, and other Criterion favorites.

— Oct 24, 2018
Connor Jessup’s Top 10
Connor Jessup’s Top 10

Canadian actor and filmmaker Connor Jessup’s third short film, Lira’s Forest, is an official selection at the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival.

— Sep 11, 2017
Happy Black Friday
Happy Black Friday
Just in time for Black Friday, two cinematic masters playfully pillory consumerism for our weekly double feature: Yasujiro Ozu’s Good Morning (1959) and Jacques Tati's Mon oncle (1958). But these wildly different virtuosos mount opposite attacks, O…

By Michael Sragow

On the Channel — Nov 25, 2016
The Signature Style of Yasujiro Ozu
The Signature Style of Yasujiro Ozu
With his singular and unwavering style, Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu disregarded the established rules of cinema and created a visual language all his own. Precise compositions, contemplative pacing, low camera angles, and elliptical storytelling a…
Short Takes — Dec 11, 2015

Explore

Yasujiro Ozu

Writer, Director

Yasujiro Ozu
Yasujiro Ozu

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.

More Yasujiro Ozu View All