Hitori musuko (1936)

A widow sends her only son away to receive a better education. Years later, she visits him, finding him a poor school teacher with a wife and son.

Director:

Yasujirô Ozu

Writers:

Yasujirô Ozu (short story) (as James Maki), Tadao Ikeda (adaptation)

Stars:

Chôko Iida, Shin'ichi Himori, Masao Hayama

Cast

Credited cast:
Chôko Iida	...	Tsune Nonomiya (O-Tsune)
Shin'ichi Himori	...	Ryosuke Nonomiya
Masao Hayama	...	Ryosuke Nonomiya, as child
Yoshiko Tsubouchi	...	Sugiko
Mitsuko Yoshikawa	...	O-Taka
Chishû Ryû	...	Professor Ookubo
Tomoko Naniwa	...	Ookubo's wife
Kiyoshi Aono	...	Matsumura, old man
Jun Yokoyama	...	Okubo's son (as Bakudan Kozô)
Eiko Takamatsu	...	Jokou
Seiichi Katô	...	Kinjo no ko (as Seiichi Kato)
Rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Tomio Aoki	...	Tomibo (as Tokkan Kozô)

Storyline

In 1923, in the province of Shinshu, the widow and simple worker of a silk factory Tsune Nonomiya (O-Tsune) decides to send her only son to Tokyo for having a better education. Thirteen years later, she visits her son Ryosuke Nonomiya (Shinichi Himori), and finds that he is a poor and frustrated night-school teacher with a wife, Sugiko (Yoshiko Tsubouchi), and a baby boy.

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Plot Keywords:

self sacrifice | motherly love | mother | son | son mother relationship | 

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Genres:

Drama

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Certificate:

Not Rated

Details

Country:

Japan

Language:

Japanese

Release Date:

1 April 1987 (USA)

Also Known As:

The Only Son

Company Credits

Production Co:

Shôchiku Eiga

Technical Specs

Runtime:

87 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

This was the last feature made at the Shochiku Kamata studio.

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Connections

Featured in A Train Arrives at the Station (2016)

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Soundtracks

Old Black Joe
Written by Stephen Foster

User Reviews

Early Ozu masterpiece

Of all the major directors in the world, Ozu was the last one to convert to sound; "The Only Son" was his first "all-talkie" film (in 1936), and it is remarkably inventive (technically) as well as deeply moving. Once again, his film deals with family dynamics: in this case, a widowed mother who has worked selflessly to provide her son with an education. But when she goes to visit him, she finds that he has not fulfilled his promise: he's stuck in a mediocre job, he has a wife and child and can't make any drastic changes because of his responsibilities. The ways that the mother and son try to reach an understanding, and their mutual resignation to the disappointments of life, create a glancing but powerful sense of that "quiet desperation" which was so often Ozu's theme.