Shukujo to hige (1931)

User Rating:

7.3/10   

Director:

Yasujiro Ozu

Writers:

Komatsu Kitamura (book)
Yasujiro Ozu (gagman)

Release Date:

7 February 1931 (Japan)

Genre:

Comedy | Romance

Plot Keywords:

Class | Beard | Kumdo

Cast

Tokihiko Okada	...	Kiichi Okajima
Hiroko Kawasaki	...	Hiroko, Typist
Chouko Iida	...	Sono haha (Hiroko's mother)
Satoko Date	...	Furyou, Modern Girl (Satoko)
Ichirô Tsukida	...	Teruo Yukimoto
Toshiko Iizuka	...	Sono imouto, Ikuko (Teruo's younger sister)
Mitsuko Yoshikawa	...	Sono haha (Teruo's mother)
Tatsuo Saito	...	Teki no taishou
Takeshi Sakamoto	...	Karei (a butler)
Sotaro Okada	...	Shachou
Yasuo Nanjo	...	Kanemochi no mobo (Rich modern boy)
Ayako Katsuragi	...	Sono haha

Also Known As:

The Lady and Her Favorite
The Lady and the Beard

Runtime:

Japan:75 min

Country:

Japan

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Silent

Company:

Shochiku Kinema Kenkyû-jo

Trivia:

Poster for what must be The Rogue Song (1930) decorates the wall in Okajima's apartment.

One hairy comedy

This eccentric comedy of manners follows a love quadrangle centered on a kendo master (Tokihiko Okada), whose chauvinistic upholding of Japanese culture screeches to a halt when he falls for a progressive (but not too progressive) office worker. He shaves his beard (after protesting memorably that "all great men have beards!" including Lincoln, Darwin and Marx), puts on a suit and learns the Western ways of wooing a woman, attracting a haughty aristocrat and a gangster floozy in the process. The three very different women seem to be presented as three feminine responses to the Western modernization of Japan, with the office girl being the ideal (conversant in Western ways while wrapped fetchingly in a kimono). Ozu's often hilarious depictions of Okada's romantic entanglements owe a good deal to Lubitsch, but his sensitivity to cultural disparity is uniquely his.