is a 1958 color

Japanese film The has a history that spans more than 100 years. Japan has one of the oldest and largest film industries in the world; as of 2021, it was the fourth largest by number of feature films produced. In 2011 Japan produced 411 feature films that e ...

directed by

Yasujirō Ozu was a Japanese film director and screenwriter. He began his career during the era of silent films, and his last films were made in colour in the early 1960s. Ozu first made a number of short comedies, before turning to more serious themes in t ...

which is based on a novel by

Ton Satomi Ton is the name of any one of several units of measure. It has a long history and has acquired several meanings and uses. Mainly it describes units of weight. Confusion can arise because ''ton'' can mean * the long ton, which is 2,240 pounds ...

Plot

Wataru Hirayama (

Shin Saburi was a Japanese film actor noted for his leading roles in a number of films by the director Yasujirō Ozu including '' Brothers and Sisters of the Toda Family'' (1941), ''Tea Over Rice'' (1952), '' Equinox Flower'' (1958) and '' Late Autumn'' (19 ...

) is a wealthy

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and List of cities in Japan, largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, ...

businessman. When an old schoolmate Mikami (

Chishū Ryū was a Japanese actor who, in a career lasting 65 years, appeared in over 160 films and about 70 television productions. Early life Ryū was born in Tamamizu Village, Tamana County, a rural area of Kumamoto Prefecture in Kyushu, the most southe ...

) approaches him for help concerning his daughter Fumiko (

Yoshiko Kuga is a Japanese actress. Biography and personal life Kuga was born in Tokyo, Japan. Her father, , was a marquis and a member of the House of Peers. In 1946, while still attending Gakushuin Junior High School, she became an actress for Toho stu ...

), who has run off owing to a conflict with her father, he agrees. Finding her in a bar where she now works, he listens to her side of the story. Fumiko complains that her father is stubborn, insisting on arranging her marriage, whereas she has now fallen in love with a musician and is adamant to lead life her own way. One day during work, a young man named Masahiko Taniguchi ( Keiji Sada) approaches Hirayama to ask for the hand of his elder daughter, Setsuko ( Ineko Arima). Hirayama is extremely unhappy that his daughter has made wedding plans on her own. He confronts her at home and says that she must not go to work until she sees the folly of her ways. Hirayama tries to find out more about Taniguchi from his subordinate. Owing to the standoff, his daughter's friend Yukiko (

Fujiko Yamamoto (born 11 December 1931) is a Japanese film and stage actress. She appeared in over 100 films between 1953 and 1963. She won the first Grand Prix of Miss Nippon in 1950. Career Yamamoto was born on 11 December 1931, in Nishi-ku, Osaka, to a c ...

) tries a ruse in which she asks Hirayama's opinion concerning a similar situation – her mother forcing her to marry someone she didn't like. When Hirayama advises her to ignore her mother, Yukiko reveals it is all a setup and states that Hirayama has just given his consent to Setsuko's marriage. Despite the ruse, Hirayama remains unchanged and Hirayama's wife Kiyoko ( Kinuyo Tanaka) accuses her husband of being "inconsistent". Even his younger daughter Hisako ( Miyuki Kuwano) is on the side of her sister, finding her father too old-fashioned. Finally, after the couple's insistence on getting married, Hirayama decides to give in by attending his daughter's wedding. After the wedding, Mikami reveals that he, like Hirayama, has agreed to let his daughter select her own marriage partner. After going for a short business trip outside Tokyo, Hirayama decides to visit the newly-weds at Hiroshima by train, where Taniguchi is stationed by his company.

Cast

* Ineko Arima - Setsuko Hirayama *

- Yukiko Sasaki *

- Fumiko Mikami *

- Wataru Hirayama * Kinuyo Tanaka - Kiyoko Hirayama * Miyuki Kuwano - Hisako Hirayama *

... Shukichi Mikami * Keiji Sada - Masahiko Taniguchi *

Teiji Takahashi was a Japanese film actor. He appeared in more than twenty films from 1950 to 1959. Takahashi died in a traffic accident. Career Born in Tokyo, Takahashi graduated from the Japanese Film School (Nihon Eiga Gakkō) and joined the Shochiku studi ...

- Shotaru Kondo * Fumio Watanabe - Ichiro Nagamura *

Nobuo Nakamura was a Japanese actor, who made notable appearances in the films of Akira Kurosawa and Yasujirō Ozu in the 1950s and 1960s. Perhaps his most famous roles in the West were those of the callous deputy mayor in Kurosawa's '' Ikiru'' (1952), and the ...

- Toshihiko Kawai * Ryūji Kita - Heinosuke Horie

Production

It is Yasujirō Ozu's first film in color, while Japan's first color film,

Keisuke Kinoshita was a Japanese film director and screenwriter. Ronald Berganbr>"A satirical eye on Japan: Keisuke Kinoshita" ''The Guardian'', 5 January 1999. While lesser-known internationally than contemporaries such as Akira Kurosawa, Kenji Mizoguchi and ...

's '' Carmen Comes Home'', had been released in 1951. Ozu chose Agfa film from Germany over

Kodak The Eastman Kodak Company (referred to simply as Kodak ) is an American public company that produces various products related to its historic basis in analogue photography. The company is headquartered in Rochester, New York, and is incorpor ...

Fujifilm , trading as Fujifilm, or simply Fuji, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, operating in the realms of photography, optics, office and medical electronics, biotechnology, and chemicals. The offerings from ...

, as he felt that it conveyed red colors better. The meaning of "equinox flower" or "higanbana" of the title is the red '' Lycoris''.

Shochiku () is a Japanese film and kabuki production and distribution company. It also produces and distributes anime films, in particular those produced by Bandai Namco Filmworks (which has a long-time partnership—the company released most, if not ...

requested that Ozu shoot ''Equinox Flower'' in color primarily to showcase

, the

Daiei , based in Kobe, is one of the largest supermarket chains in Japan. In 1957, Isao Nakauchi founded the chain in Osaka near Sembayashi Station on the Keihan train line. Daiei is now under a restructuring process supported by Marubeni Corporatio ...

superstar it had borrowed for the film. The movie is constructed to spotlight the actress, who is elevated with extended dialogue scenes as a

protégé Mentorship is the influence, guidance, or direction given by a mentor. A mentor is someone who teaches or gives help and advice to a less experienced and often younger person. In an organizational setting, a mentor influences the personal and p ...

of Hirayama who drives the plot resolution from the sidelines, and she won the 1958 Blue Ribbon Award as Best Actress for ''Equinox Flower'' and '' The Snowy Heron'', which featured her in a much showier starring role. Yamamoto also receives what may be the only solo screen credit in any of Ozu's films, which starred some of the biggest names in Japanese cinema.

Release

Critical reception

''Equinox Flower'' garnered 88% approval on

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wan ...

, with an average rating of 7.4/10.

Dave Kehr David Kehr (born 1953) is an American museum curator and film critic. For many years a critic at the ''Chicago Reader'' and the ''Chicago Tribune,'' he later wrote a weekly column for ''The New York Times'' on DVD releases. He later became a c ...

praised the film as "gentle, spare, and ultimately elusive, in a quietly satisfying way." ''Equinox Flower'' received four votes in the 2012 ''

Sight & Sound ''Sight and Sound'' (also spelled ''Sight & Sound'') is a British monthly film magazine published by the British Film Institute (BFI). It conducts the well-known, once-a-decade ''Sight and Sound'' Poll of the Greatest Films of All Time, ongoing ...

'' critics' poll of the world's greatest films.

Roger Ebert Roger Joseph Ebert (; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American film critic, film historian, journalist, screenwriter, and author. He was a film critic for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, Ebert beca ...

wrote, " In ''Equinox Flower'', a Japanese film by the old master Yasujiro Ozu, there is this sequence of shots: A room with a red teapot in the foreground. Another view of the room. The mother folding clothes. A shot down a corridor with a mother crossing it at an angle, and then a daughter crossing at the back. A reverse shot in the hallway as the arriving father is greeted by the mother and daughter. A shot as the father leaves the frame, then the mother, then the daughter. A shot as the mother and father enter the room, as in the background the daughter picks up the red pot and leaves the frame. This sequence of timed movement and cutting is as perfect as any music ever written, any dance, any poem."

Home media

In 2011, the BFI released a Region 2 Dual Format Edition (Blu-ray + DVD). Included with this release is a standard definition presentation of '' There Was a Father''.

References

External links

Rotten Tomatoes Reviews
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{{Yasujirō Ozu 1958 films Films directed by Yasujirō Ozu Shochiku films Films with screenplays by Yasujirō Ozu Films with screenplays by Kogo Noda