Early Spring (1956)
"Sôshun" (original title)

A young salary man and his wife struggle within the confines of their passionless relationship while he has an extramarital affair.

Director:

Yasujirô Ozu

Writers:

Kôgo Noda (screenplay), Yasujirô Ozu (screenplay)

Stars:

Chikage Awashima, Ryô Ikebe, Teiji Takahashi

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Chikage Awashima	...	Masako Sugiyama
Ryô Ikebe	...	Shoji Sugiyama
Teiji Takahashi	...	Taizo Aoki
Keiko Kishi	...	Chiyo Kaneko
Chishû Ryû	...	Kiichi Onodera
Sô Yamamura	...	Yutaka Kawai
Takako Fujino	...	Terumi Aoki
Masami Taura	...	Koichi Kitagawa
Haruko Sugimura	...	Tamako Tamura
Kumeko Urabe	...	Shige Kitagawa
Kuniko Miyake	...	Yukiko Kawai
Eijirô Tôno	...	Tokichi Hattori
Kôji Mitsui	...	Hirayama
Daisuke Katô	...	Sakamoto
Fujio Suga	...	Tanabe

Storyline

A young salary man and his wife struggle within the confines of their passionless relationship while he has an extramarital affair.

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Plot Keywords:

co worker | affair | corporation | dysfunctional marriage | everyday life | 

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Genres:

Drama

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Details

Country:

Japan

Language:

Japanese

Release Date:

25 September 1974 (USA)

Also Known As:

Early Spring

Filming Locations:

Enoshima, Kanagawa, Japan

Company Credits

Production Co:

Shôchiku Eiga

Technical Specs

Runtime:

144 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Black and White

Did You Know?

Connections

Referenced in The Life and Works of Yasujiro Ozu (1983)

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Soundtracks

"Shanran-bushi(Tsurero-Bushi)"
(uncredited)
Music by Yoshiji Nagatsu
Lyric by Muramatsu Hidekazu

User Reviews

Question marks around the Japanese Economic Miracle

This is the story of a married office-worker in Tokyo having an affair with a typist from the office, but do not expect a movie about illicit love and overwhelming passion. For Ozu, the story of the affair serves only as a framework for a portrayal of the life of ordinary white-collar workers. And what a bleak portrayal it is! In Ozu's vision, to be an office-worker means going through a mind-numbing routine every day for little pay, waiting on a promotion that may never come until you leave empty handed on the day of your retirement, and should the rumor spread that you're bonking your stenographer, you risk being banished to the Japanese equivalent of Siberia.

So all-encompassing is the grip of the corporation on the characters in this movie that events such as pregnancy and death are almost exclusively discussed in terms of money earned and time clocked. Even the affair itself seems less motivated by desire as by a need to alleviate the drudgery.

While this examination of working life is, at 143 minutes runtime, just a tad too long and never reaches the emotional depth found in Kurosawa's Ikiru, another movie about an ordinary guy stuck in a meaningless job, it's nevertheless interesting to see that compared to Kurosawa's movie, Ozu, often considered the most conservative of great Japanese filmmakers, has made a much more overt and damning criticism on the Japanese work-ethic.

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