Chichi ariki (1942)

Director:

Yasujiro Ozu

Writers:

Tadao Ikeda (writer)
Yasujiro Ozu (writer)

Release Date:

November 1982 (USA)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

Shuhei Horikawa, a poor schoolteacher, struggles to raise his son Ryohei by himself, despite neither money nor prospects. |

Cast

Chishû Ryû	...	Shuhei Horikawa
Shûji Sano	...	Ryohei
Shin Saburi	...	Yasutaro Kurokawa
Takeshi Sakamoto	...	Makoto Hirata
Mitsuko Mito	...	Fumi
Masayoshi Otsuka	...	Seichi
Shinichi Himori	...	Minoru Uchida
Haruhiko Tsuda	...	Ryohei as a child
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Kanji Kawara	...	Teacher of junior high school
Yûsuke Kurata	...	Teacher of junior high school
Tsuneo Osugi

Also Known As:

There Was a Father

Runtime:

USA:94 min | Japan:94 min

Country:

Japan

Language:

Japanese

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Brazil:18

Company:

Shôchiku Eiga

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Ikite wa mita keredo - Ozu Yasujirô den (1983)

Unusual Ozu film

Most of the films of Yasujiro Ozu take a very restricted time period: a few days at the most. "There Was a Father" is unusual in that the time span is actually quite long: it stretches over a number of years (this is also the case with "The Only Son"), as it chronicles the relationship of a widower with his son. The father, a schoolteacher (played by Chishu Ryu), struggles to make sure that his son has advantages that he never had; in this case, the son is appreciative of all that the father has done, and the relationship is one of the most heartwarming of all familial relationships in Ozu's work. "There Was a Father" represents one of the most beautiful depictions of a good parent in all of world cinema.