Older Brother, Younger Sister (1953)
"Ani imôto" (original title)

Director:

Mikio Naruse

Writers:

Yôko Mizuki, Saisei Murô (novel)

Stars:

Machiko Kyô, Masayuki Mori, Yoshiko Kuga

Cast

Complete credited cast:
Machiko Kyô	...	Mon
Masayuki Mori	...	Inokichi - the Brother
Yoshiko Kuga	...	San
Yûji Hori	...	Taiichi
Eiji Funakoshi	...	Kobata
Reisaburô Yamamoto	...	Akara - the Father
Kumeko Urabe	...	Riki - the Mother
Mantarô Ushio
Ken'ichi Miyajima
Rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Gai Harada

Storyline

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Plot Keywords:

based on novel

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Genres:

Drama

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Details

Country:

Japan

Language:

Japanese

Release Date:

19 August 1953 (Japan)

Also Known As:

Bruder und Schwester

Company Credits

Production Co:

Daiei Tokyo Daini

Technical Specs

Runtime:

86 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Did You Know?

Connections

Remake of Ani imôto (1936)

User Reviews

Excellent

This is a very impressive Naruse effort, its reputation somehow lost in the mix between the better-known Repast and Sound of the Mountain. As did Flowing this one completely immerses you in its subjects' lives, capturing you with the gentle but increasingly subtly erratic and ominous rhythms of drama and editing. By the end we've reached a devastating climax fulfilled by a denouement of similarly grim yet beautiful ambiguity. My favourite moment may be the broken countershot near the end, which sets up to imply a flashback only to create a forward ellipse. It caps the film wonderfully.

Machiko Kyo is superb, but Reisaburo Yamamoto and Masayuki Mori overplay without the necessary depth to offset their excess. Yoshiko Kuga has always struck me as an actress who simply reads her lines, and she's bland here as usual but it works for the character. None of this hurts the film, though.