is a 1933 silent movie produced by Shochiku Company, directed by Japanese director

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 ...

and starring

Takeshi Sakamoto was a Japanese actor. He appeared in more than 100 films from 1926 to 1965. Selected filmography External links * 1899 births 1974 deaths Japanese male film actors Actors from Hyōgo Prefecture {{Japan-film-actor-stub ...

, Nobuko Fushimi, Den Obinata and Chouko Iida. It won the Kinema Junpo Award for best film, the second of three consecutive years an Ozu film won, following '' I Was Born, But...'' and preceding '' A Story of Floating Weeds''. Ozu regular Chishū Ryū has a small role towards the end of the film as a fellow passenger on board a ship.

Plot

Two

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, ...

co-workers at a brewery, Kihachi (

) and Jiro ( Den Obinata), go and visit a

rōkyoku ''Rōkyoku'' (; also called ''naniwa-bushi'', ) is a genre of traditional Japanese narrative singing. Generally accompanied by a ''shamisen'', ''rōkyoku'' became very popular in Japan during the first half of the 20th century. In modern Japanes ...

performance. On leaving the theater, they happen to chance on a girl Harue ( Nobuko Fushimi), who is destitute with no place to go. Jiro is reluctant to help her out but Kihachi takes a fancy on the pretty girl and decides to give her a place to stay at the house of a restaurant owner friend of his, Otome ( Chouko Iida). She helps out at the place and Otome soon takes a liking for her. Kihachi, an illiterate widower, becomes enamored of the girl and begins grooming himself so that she will take notice of him. Jiro, who is younger and in his thirties, thinks of Harue as nothing but trouble and treats her rudely. Kihachi has a young son Tomio ( Tokkan Kozo) who is a fine student at an

elementary school A primary school (in Ireland, the United Kingdom, Australia, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, and South Africa), junior school (in Australia), elementary school or grade school (in North America and the Philippines) is a school for primary ed ...

. Harue confides in Kihachi that she thinks him nothing more than a kind uncle. Meanwhile, Otome goes to Kihachi and asks him to talk Jiro into marrying Harue. Kihachi is upset that no one thinks Harue a suitable match for himself, but he speaks to Jiro nonetheless, but Jiro gruffly rejects Kihachi. Kihachi gives Tomio 50

sen Sen may refer to: Surname * Sen (surname), a Bengali surname * Şen, a Turkish surname * A variant of the Serer patronym Sène Currency subunit * Etymologically related to the English word ''cent''; a hundredth of the following currencies: ** ...

to treat himself, and he ends up stuffing himself with so much sweets that he becomes sick with acute enteritis. Kihachi and Otome fear for his life while his teacher and a classmate visit him to urge him to get well. Kihachi cannot afford the doctor's bill. Harue offers to raise the money but is stopped privately by Jiro, who instead goes to his barber friend for a loan. To repay the loan, Jiro decides to go to

Hokkaido is Japan, Japan's Japanese archipelago, second largest island and comprises the largest and northernmost Prefectures of Japan, prefecture, making up its own List of regions of Japan, region. The Tsugaru Strait separates Hokkaidō from Honshu; th ...

to work as a laborer. He promises Harue to return. Just at this point, Kihachi appears and to stop Jiro from going, knocks him unconscious so that he will miss his ship which departs later that day. Kihachi decides to work in Hokkaido instead, despite the attempted dissuasions of Otome and the barber. He leaves Tomio in their care and boards the ship. Shortly after they set sail, Kihachi begins talking to his fellow passengers about his son and, overcome with homesickness and a pining for Tomio, jumps overboard and swims back home.

Release

The film was released in Japan in 1933. It was released with a new score by Donald Sosin on DVD in the US in 2008 via The Criterion Collection, as part of a three-film collection under the Eclipse Series.''Passing Fancy (1933) - The Criterion Collection''
Accessed 23 July 2009.

Cast

- Kihachi * Tokkan Kozou - Tomio *Nobuko Fushimi - Harue *Den Obinata - Jiro *

Choko Iida Choko may refer to: *An alternative name for Chayote, a green vegetable of the gourd family * Chokó languages, an alternative name for the Choco languages * Chöko, a Tibeto-Burman language * Choko (cup), a type of sake cup * Choko (game) *The na ...

- Otome

References

External links

*
Michael Karpan's essay on ''Passing Fancy''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Passing Fancy 1933 films Japanese black-and-white films Japanese silent films Films directed by Yasujirō Ozu Best Film Kinema Junpo Award winners Films with screenplays by Tadao Ikeda Shochiku films Japanese drama films 1933 drama films 1930s Japanese-language films Silent drama films