Good Morning - Criterion Collection

Starring:Keiji Sada, Yoshiko Kuga, Chishu Ryu, Kuniko Miyake, Haruko Sugimura, Koji Shitara, Masahiko Shimazu, Kyouko Izumi, Toyoko Takahashi, Sadako Sawamura, EijirÃ´ Tono, Teruko Nagaoka, Eiko Miyoshi, Haruo Tanaka, Akira Oizumi, Fujio Suga, Taiji Tonoyama, Akio Satake, Keijiro Morozumi, Mutsuko Sakura
Director: Yasujiro Ozu
Studio: Image Entertainment
Product Type: DVD

Editorial Review:
Amazon.com
By the time he made Good Morning in 1959, Yasujiro Ozu had completely eliminated camera movement from his uniquely simple but elegant directorial style. He chose instead to emphasize static but meticulously purposeful compositions that rarely, if ever, wavered from their recognizable low-angle perspective. In Good Morning, this observational approach is put to sublime use to establish setting (a late-'50s Tokyo suburb) and to view the world through the eyes of the film's central characters-two young brothers who take a mutual vow of silence to protest their parents' refusal to buy a TV set. Their father claims that television will create "a million idiots," while their mother is angered by the boys' neglect of schoolwork in favor of watching sumo wrestling on a neighbor's TV.

Amazon.com

By the time he made Good Morning in 1959, Yasujiro Ozu had completely eliminated camera movement from his uniquely simple but elegant directorial style. He chose instead to emphasize static but meticulously purposeful compositions that rarely, if ever, wavered from their recognizable low-angle perspective. In Good Morning, this observational approach is put to sublime use to establish setting (a late-'50s Tokyo suburb) and to view the world through the eyes of the film's central characters—-two young brothers who take a mutual vow of silence to protest their parents' refusal to buy a TV set. Their father claims that television will create "a million idiots," while their mother is angered by the boys' neglect of schoolwork in favor of watching sumo wrestling on a neighbor's TV.

Description

Ozu's hilarious Technicolor re-working of his silent I Was Born, But. . ., Good Morning (Ohayo) is the story of two young boys in suburban Tokyo who take a vow of silence after their parents refuse to buy them a television set. Shot from the perspective of the petulant brothers, Good Morning is an enchantingly satirical portrait of family life that gives rise to gags about romance, gossip, and the consumerism of modern Japan.

Customer Reviews:

Amusing and satirical exam of communication.......2007-06-26

Once you have watched an Ozu film, you will recognize it clearly as his. He often casts the same actors to fulfill roles. His films deal with the common everyday life's situations with mothers, fathers, children, families in love, conflict, and death. Ozu first film was in 1929 and his last in 1962.

Use of Red or Blue
Since I have not seen all his films, I recognize in many, an eyecatching motif is the use of colors, namely blue and red. In Good Morning, almost every scene here you can spot something red standing out. Whether it is a rug, a pot, shoes, clothes on a line, a wall, whatever, something in red is strategically placed in the shot. Blue is used more in the outdoors, like the sky or rooftops.

Geometric figures
Ozu frequently uses circles or rectangles as background patterns. Almost all the scenes have these geometric designs. It is easy to spot.

Low-angle camera shot
Another recognizable feature is the use of low-angle, he places the camera the level of the floor; this is our view of where action is, the floor.

Set in 1959, two young boys, and I equate them to young Wally and Beaver Cleaver stage a silent protest until they get a TV. The younger boy is so adorable, and he so reminds me of little Beaver Cleaver. He looks up to his older brother, mimics his every move and even exhibits some amusing actions of his own. The background story is a satirical examination of the communication, gossip, rumor fueled by the adults. This is humorous and enjoyable. .....MzRizz

Ozu, Most Japanese of the Japanese directors.......2006-02-27

Ozu has been called the most Japanese of all Japanese directors, and for good reason, he is. Ohayo (Good Morning) is Ozu at his Japanese best. There is a misunderstanding among the neighborhood ladies. Some club money has turned up missing. The misunderstanding is compounded by two boys, who after an argument with their parents, are told to shut up. The boys want a television set, the parents do not. The boys take their parents admonition to shut up to the extreme, they stop speaking to everybody, even the neighborhood ladies. These ladies find that their customary greetings of ohayo (good morning) to the boys goes unanswered. The ladies feel that the boys mother is angry at them and a neighborhood quarrel ensues. Finally the parents relent, the boys get their television set so life resumes to normality once again, everyone is happy. No action, just everyday life.

Ignorant the previous review.......2005-09-02

Who obviously knows nothing about Ozu or his canon of films. This is one of Ozu's pure comedies, and one of his best. Hopefully Criterion will re-issue it with more features.

Snoozalinga.......2005-07-26

I watched this dogg-o with some Japanese folks I know and let me tell ya all of thought it was the most boring, obvious, dated bore we'd laid eyes on in many a moon. And these guys are from a very wealthy, aristocratic, old Japanese family at the vanguard of Westernization in the 50s. STAY AWAY

Delightful Sitcom Bears Ozu's Depth and Then Some.......2005-07-03

Flatulence seems to be an odd way of lending a framework to a film, but leave it to filmmaking master Yasujiro Ozu to use it as a metaphor for the meaninglessness of "small talk" between people who cannot be candid with one another. The title of this 1959 movie, "Ohayô (Good Morning)", is indeed the salutation but also from Ozu's perspective, a symbolic expression of how the Japanese avoid confrontation and put a strong value on etiquette. One of Ozu's late period color films, this is a very cute comedy which on the surface, seems like an extended episode of "Leave It to Beaver" especially in exhibiting the speedy Americanization of Japan since WWII. Even the color palette seems to evoke the muted McCarthy-era colors of the Universal comedies release around the same time. What remains consistent are Ozu's signature visual compositions - the use of the hillside to place the horizon in the middle of the frame, the use of silhouettes against the hillside, the movement of figures darting between the identical homes.

Set in a shoebox-tight housing community in Tokyo, the plot seamlessly interweaves the activities of five households - four of the more traditional variety and the fifth, a young beatnik couple who has the prized possession of the neighborhood, a TV set, which draws all the children in like clockwork after school. In the meantime, the housewives discover their association dues are missing and in "Peyton Place"-style, rumors swirl that the culprit is the woman who just bought a washing machine. Further subplots involve an unemployed English teacher, who can only speak banalities to the woman he loves; an older unemployed man who habitually gets drunk at the local bar and can't find his own home since they all look alike; and the funniest about two young brothers, the older particularly obstreperous in furiously sharing his all-too-perceptive observations of the adults - and practicing a strike of silence when their parents refuse to buy a TV set. Of course, that doesn't prevent the brothers and their friends from playing competitive rounds of "pull my finger" - a tap on the forehead yields a forced fart.

The performances are charming and quite undemanding with several members of Ozu's regular troupe present - Chishu Ryu and Kuniko Miyake (the father and older son's wife in "Tokyo Story") as the put-upon parents of the TV-demanding brothers; Haruko Sugimura (the petty daughter in "Tokyo Story") as the accused dues pilferer; and Toyoko Takahashi (the Onomichi neighbor in "Tokyo Story") as another of the gossipy housewives. As the young people unable to articulate their feelings for each other, Keiji Sada is the English teacher and Yoshiko Kuga is the boys' shy aunt, who couriers the documents for translation. And as the brothers, 13-year old Koji Shitara plays Minoru and seven-year old Masahiko Shimazu is Isamu, the latter particularly adorable when mimicking his older brother. This movie is certainly not in the class of "Tokyo Story" or "Floating Weeds", but I doubt if Ozu intended it to be. It's just a gentle, well-coordinated, sometimes hilarious poke at Japanese cultural traditions, a parable masquerading as a family comedy. Personally this is the Ozu film I can relate to the most since it speaks to my generation of Japanese-born Americans. The DVD package from the Criterion Collection is surprisingly sparse - no audio commentary, no trailer - but the video transfer and sound quality are excellent.

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