Directed by Yasujiro Ozu • 1933 • Japan
Starring Yoshiko Okada, Ureo Egawa, Kinuyo Tanaka
In this powerful, compassionate melodrama, Chikako (Yoshiko Okada) works by day as a typist to help put her brother Ryoichi (Ureo Egawa) through school. What he doesn’t know is that by night she also works as a prostitute—a secret that has the power to destroy them both. Shot in just a little over a week, WOMAN OF TOKYO nevertheless abounds with director Yasujiro Ozu’s sophisticated compositional touches (including his emerging use of pillow shots), which enhance the film’s shattering impact.
Up Next in Directed by Yasujiro Ozu
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A Mother Should Be Loved
Directed by Yasujiro Ozu • 1934 • Japan
Starring Mitsuko Yoshikawa, Yukichi Iwata, Den OhinataDespite its missing first and last reels, this sensitive domestic drama remains a key work in the refinement of director Yasujiro Ozu’s style in its intimate focus on family dynamics. Following the dea...
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A Story of Floating Weeds
Directed by Yasujiro Ozu • 1934 • Japan
Starring Takeshi Sakamoto, Choko Iida, Koji (Hideo) MitsuiIn 1959, Yasujiro Ozu remade his 1934 silent classic A STORY OF FLOATING WEEDS in color with the celebrated cinematographer Kazuo Miyagawa (RASHOMON, UGETSU). Setting his later version in a seaside...
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An Inn in Tokyo
Directed by Yasujiro Ozu • 1935 • Japan
The final still-extant silent film directed by Yasujiro Ozu is an exquisitely tender portrait of everyday survival in 1930s Japan. Anticipating the neorealist poetry of BICYCLE THIEVES, AN INN IN TOKYO follows unemployed ne’er-do-well Kihachi (Takeshi Saka...
