Seventeen of Ozu's films are irretrievably lost. In fact, none of his first seven films survive. No scripts, stills, or prints are known to exist. This installment of Discovering Ozu looks at what we do know about those seven films and examines Ozu's earliest surviving feature, Days of Youth.
From 1929's Days of Youth, Ozu's earliest surviving feature
A recurring theme that cropped up in researching missing early films is that there's very little specific info about their storylines, as well as their precise running times. My greatest resource (for this article and much of the series), has been a combination of excellent fansite Ozu-san and David Bordwell's Ozu and the Poetics of Cinema, which is now long-out of print. Bordwell is the definitive english-language scholar and passionate advocate of Ozu. Just look at how often Criterion uses him for their Ozu releases. His book is the backbone of reference material I'll cite frequently, so get used to seeing his last name. While we're at it, start reading his blog. It's one of the best out there for true cinephiles.
Early Films: An Overview
Most of Ozu's early films were three- or five-reelers, like that of any new director at a studio during that era. Most titles would have hovered at around the hour mark, if not a little longer. The general impression is that Ozu felt that most of the following were better left forgotten and didn't reflect his voice as an artist (with one notable exception, Body Beautiful). He was a contract worker on these, and not the auteur.
Before moving up to the top job, Ozu liked the freedom of being an assistant director, where he wasn't being watched or put in charge of others. He could do his own thing for the most part. It's a difficult freedom to concede.
1: Sword of Penitence (1927)
Zange no yaiba
status || completely lost: no script, prints, or stills survive
The story on how Ozu got his first job as director is a little hazy from scraps of interviews I could find and the always-fraught world of translated Japanese. With that proviso, here's the best that I can sort out (partly based on Ozu's account and that of others):
Once Ozu finally gave in to pressure from friends and colleagues to make his first feature, he planned to make a script that he had written called Mountain of Hard Times. Then, he was assigned to work in his usual role of assistant on Sword of Penitence, written by the man who would be Ozu's longtime writing partner, Kogo Noda.
The intended director dropped out for one reason or another, and Ozu got bumped up to the top job, with the studio stipulation that he would thereafter be a director in their period drama unit. This is like getting told you're going to be the showrunner of a long-running TV series, only to find out that you're now in charge of Days of Our Lives.
I would dispute the validity of calling Sword of Penitence (1927) Yasujiro Ozu's true first feature. It's my read that Ozu really had very little to do with it, since he was drafted into military service very early in production, hurried to finish filming, and was called to duty just before finishing principal photography.
Ozu had nothing to do with editing or any reshoots, and he only saw the finished product once. He was less than impressed. On top of this, the studio closed its period drama department by the time Ozu returned from military service, so he got bumped over to the comedy/melodrama unit.
Based on the title, one may want to assume that there's a lost Ozu samurai film, but nothing could be further from the case. Think of this as a "cost of crime" moral play, with people wearing period clothing. If I were to re-translate the title with a layer of interpretation (based on the synopsis below), I'd call it Blade of Regret.
The movie itself concerns a thief and his brother, a recent parolee. The parolee wants to go straight, but his former partner doesn't want him to. The parolee's good-for-nothing brother then steals a hairpin and leaves it with his recently-freed brother, who is in turn jailed for the theft. The woman who had the hairpin stolen gets the innocent parolee off the hook, but he quickly loses his legit job and succumbs to drinking. He returns to crime alongside his brother, only for them to find themselves on the run from the parolee's former partner. Despite the help of yet another woman, the ex-partner tracks down and kills the thief, leaving the parolee as the survivor. Sounds like loads of laughs and fun (or not).
2: The Dreams of Youth (1928)
Wakodo no yume
status || completely lost: no script, prints, or stills survive
Ozu turned down offer after offer from the studio, wanting to down-shift back to being able to coast as an assistant. When they gave him the opportunity to direct one of his own scripts, he hopped back into the director's chair.
Dreams was the first of many Ozu movies featuring a pair of guys feuding in some manner. Okada and Kato are rommates at a boarding house. Kato has an unpaid bill from a tailor that he pays with Okada's clothes. Okada's dad makes a long trip to visit his son, but Okada is without clothes. Hilarity ensues. The roommates both romance girlfriends, and the film concludes with the two couples spending an afternoon together. Cue the 'love conquers all' theme.
That which is known about this one serves as an interesting comparison to later films Where Now Are the Dreams of Youth? and Equinox Flower, which I'll talk about later on. Bordwell notes that critics marked this as the first example of Ozu's perception of being "progressive", as well as his penchant for bodily function humor. While out at the park, Okada writes "I love you" to his girl, she writes back indicating "toilet", and runs off to the restroom. That's toilet humor I can believe in...being so overcome with passion and joy that you have to evacuate your bowels.
3: Wife Lost (1928)
Nyobo funshitsu
status || completely lost: no script, prints, or stills survive
Ozu made this five-reeler (among others) as a professional obligation to Shochiku, not because he necessarily wanted to. It was based on a short story from a magazine, and Ozu would later claim he couldn't remember the plot because it bored him so much. It was either completely unmemorable, or the hell that is put-upon work caused him to block it out due to utter resentment.
The plot went like this:
Even though the main guy has a gorgeous wife, he shacks up with a dancer. His wife's uncle hires a private eye to keep tabs on the cheating louse. The next bit of the brief synopsis that Bordwell unearthed makes me extrapolate that the husband and dancer hussy find themselves in a hotel together when they discover that the detective and wife are pursuing them. Until that point, they're none the wiser. This leads to a final chase with a motorcycle cop and a bunch of sight gags.
Bordwell goes on to note that critics insisted that Ozu 'didn't get it' when it came to this style of "nansensu" caper comedy (sounds familiar...). He goes on further to hypothesize that the critics may have been referring to Ozu's early imitation of Ernst Lubitsch and Harold Lloyd techniques in his earliest surviving films, such as close-ups on hands or feet related to sight gags that didn't work as well for Ozu as they did for his idols.
4: Pumpkin (1928)
Kabocha
status || completely lost: no script, prints, or stills survive
The only shred of info that Bordwell found on this, another five-reel "nansensu" comedy, was that it concerned a guy with "too many" girlfriends. Ozu felt it was much too rushed and far too short. Regardless, he felt that this is where he began to hit his stride when it came to managing continuity.
5: A Couple on the Move (1928)
Hikkoshi fufu
status || completely lost: no script, prints, or stills survive
This one concerns a husband and wife who have just relocated. The furniture man shows up at their previous residence to collect on their bill. He tracks them to their new place, and the wife pays him, but only settles a portion of the full bill. She then leaves the house to find her husband at the corner store, presumably so that she can get the rest of the money to pay the bill.
The wife sees her husband helping the girl at the counter open a strongbox, and assumes that he's hitting on the the shopgirl. She heads back home, fuming. The landlord drops by their place at the same time. Let's just say here that this next part would probably play out more salaciously in a modern movie than it did in 1928.
The wife comes on to the landlord to piss off her husband, who comes home and proceeds to get rather incensed. After a fight, they decide to move again. I'm guessing that this happened previously and is the reason that they moved the first time. That evening, we find out that the shopgirl and the landlord are getting married, and everyone chills out.
Ozu took this as yet another "for hire" assignment from Shochiku, but according to him, he tried adding some of his own flourishes to it. Regrettably, the studio dumped half of his original edit in favor of their own, and Ozu was once again unsatisfied with the result of all his effort.
Tatsuo Saito in 1929's Days of Youth
6: Body Beautiful (1928)
Nikutaibi
status || completely lost: no script, prints, or stills survive
Tatsuo Saito stars as the scrawny, unemployed husband of a painter. Saito had previously done Dreams of Youth, Wife Lost, and Pumpkin with Ozu, and would go on to do various other films with him for a while yet. I'll be posting an Appendix piece that focuses on him in the coming days.
Here, Saito is playing Ichiro, a wispy little man who keeps up the house, does whatever his wife orders, and is generally a servant first and husband in name only. His wife's wealthy patron comes to the house, flirts with her, and later on, proceeds to provoke and intimidate Ichiro at a bar.
Furious and indignant at his wife's permissive behavior, Ichiro takes up painting. His wife hires a bodybuilder to be her new model in place of her wimpy hubby. When Ichiro and his wife's paintings are exhibited, he wins a prize. She doesn't win anything and throws away her paintbrushes to become a proper, subservient housewife.
Ah, the 1920's.
Ozu's fifth film of 1928 (a five-reeler) was his first critical success, not the commonly-cited I Was Born, But... (1932). The critics said he finally broke free of the "nansensu" form and had produced a serviceable film. Today, it would be considered somewhere in the tragicomedy/dramedy realm.
Ozu felt that he finally settled into a groove and at once truly figured out his own filmmaking perspective. It's a shame that the first movie Ozu really felt proud of (in terms of craftsmanship) is gone forever, especially considering how good Saito is in later Ozu pictures.
7: Treasure Mountain (1929)
Takara no yama
status || completely lost: no script, prints, or stills survive
Another "work" picture, Ozu cranked this out in a hurry. He daydreamed about a baseball game on the morning of the sixth day of shooting rather more than he paid attention to the shooting of the movie itself (according to the site Ozu-san). Mountain was an update of an old vaudeville show, and was originally to be called A Modern Spring Calendar. Reviews cited the movie as being slow and not very visually engaging.
The plot concerns a guy who lives in a geisha house. He has a girlfriend, but he falls in love with one of the geishas. His dad won't give him any more money, and his "modern" girlfriend wants him to move out of the geisha house (big surprise there).
Once he does ditch the geisha house and go after his girlfriend, she's already gotten engaged to someone else. He runs across the geisha by chance while she is performing at a party. The guy and the geisha get back together, and the movie closes with him back at the geisha house eating green tea over rice. The plot echo of this movie later in Ozu's career is The Lady and The Beard (1931).
Chieko (Junko Matsui), the girl who comes between two bumbling college pals
8: Days of Youth (1929)
Gakusei romance: Wakaki hi
status || fully preserved: script, original negative, and prints exist
on disc (UK/R2) || BFI's Ozu Student Comedies (13.99 GBP, or ~$23 USD) also includes I Flunked, But..., The Lady & The Beard, Where Now Are the Dreams of Youth, and I Graduated, But...
on disc (Hong Kong/R3) || Days of Youth only ($10.99 USD plus shipping), with English subtitles
on disc (Japan/R3) || OOP 6-DVD set includes surviving work from Days of Youth (1927) through Dragnet Girl (1933), but with no English subtitles ($270 USD minimum)
how to watch || BFI's Ozu Student Comedies set is the best value, and features a better subtitle translation than the HK disc
how to release it in Region 1 || Package it with the other "Student Comedy" movies like the BFI did, or combine those and the contents of BFI's Gangster Films set as The Early Films of Ozu.
Ozu's earliest surviving film is a college comedy wherein a couple of pals pursue the same girl, Chieko (pictured above). One of them offers to sublet his room to her, but leaves all of his stuff behind so that he has to keep dropping by unannounced to pick up things that he "forgot". The other clumsily stalks her (a tradition still endorsed in many movies) and bungles his way through an awkward chat over tea. Neither is aware of the other's pursuit until well into the film's runtime.
Tatsuo Saito as scrawny, nerdy Yamamoto
Watanabe (Ichiro Yuki) and Chieko (Junko Matsui) "meet cute"...sort of. Note the poster for Frank Borzage's 7th Heaven in the background of this shot. Ozu peppered his early films with references to Hollywood movies.
The love triangle dissolves when they unexpectedly run into the girl at a ski retreat. She's there for a formal meeting leading to an arranged marriage, which we also discover before they do. They return home disappointed about the girl only to find out that they're flunking. The subletting schemer assures the other pal that he'll snag his pal a new girl.
Chieko's mother is played by Choko Iida in a bit part. Iida is an actress who would go on to play one of Ozu's great female leading roles (among many) in his first sound film, The Only Son. The guy have a mustachioed professor that they nickname "The Badger" played by Takeshi Sakamoto, another actor who has a heavy presence in Ozu's early films, including a run as a signature character named Kihachi. We'll discuss both of them in greater depth later in this series. Chishu Ryu, who would appear in more of Ozu's films than any other actor, has a bit part as an unnamed "Student" in Days. Ryu previously worked with Ozu on the lost The Dreams of Youth, A Couple on the Move, and Body Beautiful. He would next appear in the director's That Night's Wife and I Flunked, But.... We'll look at the Mifune to Ozu's Kurosawa in greater depth later in the series.
Takeshi Sakamoto as the scowling, goofball Professor "Badger"
There's Chishu Ryu in the middle.
The movie stands in stark contrast to the films and style for which Ozu is best-known. For one, the camera moves a great deal, with pans, tracking shots, and even some handheld throughout. The movie really has more in common with American comedies of the time rather than other Japanese film. Hollywood references are also thick, both in production design (posters and so on) and characterization (one of the college guys is outfitted with Harold Lloyd-style glasses). In general, the audience's foreknowledge of events and conflicts is a very "Hollywood" thing not common during this era of Japanese cinema.
Both guys are a disaster on the slopes, Yamamoto even more so than Watanabe.
The skiing portion of the movie includes more minutes outdoors than I remember in most later Ozu films I've seen. The "comedy" doesn't really make you guffaw 80 years later, but little of that genre from this era does. I will admit that the chuckles do pick up once you get to the slopes. The movie is something of a three-blend cheese that's perfectly satisfactory, but more interesting in contrast to stuff that's aged better.
As nice as it would be to have all of his films survive, it's rather poetic that this is the earliest one that does. The young studio filmmaker on display here is unmistakably the one who evolved into the fully-sculpted artist revered today. We see him make do with a cheap ski lodge set, with which he composes a predecessor to his visually complex adjacent spaces found in later films. He would eschew eye line matches and 180 degree rules, but you can tell this is the same guy.
The first of many tea kettles in Ozu films.
"Room upstairs for rent"
There's poetic symmetry throughout this otherwise cheap throwaway concept, and that structure is what's most fascinating about this early film. As seen in other early Ozu comedies, the beginning and end echo one another very intentionally. Even in a genre that traffics in accidents, none of Ozu's framing indicates carelessness in the least. Here's hoping that Criterion manages to bring a proper edition to US shores at some point.
Seven minutes of Days of Youth's skiing segment can be glimpsed on YouTube:
Up Next
The next installment of Discovering Ozu covers the next stretch of his features up through I Flunked, But... (1931), which include a mixture of more lost films in addition to partially and fully preserved features.
Discovering Ozu is an ongoing series of articles designed to introduce curious cinephiles to the work of Japanese master filmmaker Yasujiro Ozu.
Essential sources include: David Bordwell's book Ozu and the Poetics of Cinema, Donald Richie's Ozu: His Life and Films, and the various booklets and featurettes produced by The Criterion Collection. Quick reference often comes from definitive Ozu fansite "Ozu-san".
If sharing or discussing this article or series on Twitter, please use hashtag #DiscoveringOzu
New to Discovering Ozu? Start at the beginning.