is a 1942 Japanese film directed by

Yasujirō Ozu was a Japanese filmmaker. 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 the 1930s. The most pr ...

Plot summary

Shuhei Horikawa (

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, Kumamoto, Tamana County, a rural area of Kumamoto Prefecture in Kyushu ...

) works as a

mathematics Mathematics is a field of study that discovers and organizes methods, Mathematical theory, theories and theorems that are developed and Mathematical proof, proved for the needs of empirical sciences and mathematics itself. There are many ar ...

school-teacher in a

middle school Middle school, also known as intermediate school, junior high school, junior secondary school, or lower secondary school, is an educational stage between primary school and secondary school. Afghanistan In Afghanistan, middle school includes g ...

. A widower, he has a ten-year-old son named Ryohei (Haruhiko Tsuda), who studies in the same school. While taking his class out for an excursion one day, one of his pupils drowns after running off with a classmate on a secret boat trip. Shuhei blames himself for the accident, and quits his teaching job out of remorse. Shuhei enrolls his son to a junior high school in

Ueda Ueda may refer to: Places *Ueda, Nagano, a city in Japan * Ueda Castle in Japan * Ueda Domain of Japan * Ueda Glacier in Antarctica Other uses * Ueda (surname) *Siege of Ueda Sekigahara campaign Sieges of the Sengoku period Attacks on castles ...

, where Ryohei studies as a boarder, and goes to work in

Tokyo Tokyo, officially the Tokyo Metropolis, is the capital of Japan, capital and List of cities in Japan, most populous city in Japan. With a population of over 14 million in the city proper in 2023, it is List of largest cities, one of the most ...

to finance his son's education. Years pass. The twenty-five-year-old Ryohei (

Shūji Sano was a Japanese actor active from 1936 to 1977. A popular star of the Shōchiku film studios, he is best known for his appearances in the films of Yasujirō Ozu, Keisuke Kinoshita, Heinosuke Gosho and Hiroshi Shimizu. Selected filmography * 193 ...

) has finished college and has himself become a school-teacher in Akita. Shuhei now works as a clerk in a Tokyo textile factory and the two meet occasionally. Ryohei has thoughts of quitting his teaching job to join his father at Tokyo, but Shuhei rebukes him for not doing what his duty decrees. Ryohei takes a ten-day vacation to join his father in Tokyo. Together with retired headmaster Makoto Hirata (

Takeshi Sakamoto was a Japanese actor. He appeared in more than 300 films between 1925 and 1965, mostly in productions of the Shōchiku studio. He gained popularity as a supporting character, working for directors such as Yasujirō Ozu, Keisuke Kinoshita, Mikio ...

), Shuhei attends a get-together with his former pupils and the group reminisce about their school days. When Shuhei returns home, he suffers a heart attack and is admitted to the hospital. Asking Hirata's daughter Fumiko (

Mitsuko Mito was a Japanese actress. She appeared in more than 150 films between 1935 and 1973 under the direction of filmmakers like Kenji Mizoguchi, Yasujirō Ozu and Kaneto Shindō. Selected filmography * ''Wakadanna haru ranman'' (1935) – Girl studen ...

) to take care of his son, he dies soon after. The final scene shows Ryohei and his new wife Fumiko returning to Akita, with the urn containing his father's ashes resting on the luggage rack; the two have agreed to live together with Hirata and Fumiko's younger brother.

Cast

as Shuhei *

as Ryohei (as an adult) * Haruhiko Tsuda as Ryohei (as a child) *

Shin Saburi was a Japanese actor and film director. Biography Shin Saburi was born Yoshio Ishizaki in Utashinai, Hokkaidō, Japan. He made his acting debut in 1931 and started working for the Shochiku studio in the mid-1930s, where he became one of the st ...

as Yasutaro Kurokawa *

as Makoto Hirata *

as Fumi *

Shinichi Himori , born , was a Japanese film actor. He appeared in more than seventy films from 1925 to 1959. Career Born in Tokyo, Himori entered the Shochiku studios in 1924 and, after starting out in side roles, became a leading player, particularly speciali ...

as Minoru Uchida *

Kōji Mitsui was a Japanese actor. He appeared in more than 150 films from 1925 to 1975, including 29 of ''Kinema Junpo''’s annual Top-10 winners and three of its 10 best Japanese films of all time. In 2000 the magazine named him one of the 60 most impor ...

as alumnus

Production

Yasujirō Ozu wrote the first draft of ''There Was a Father'' before he went to China in 1937. On returning to Japan, he rewrote it, feeling that "it could still be improved".

Release

''There Was a Father'' was released on April 1, 1942. In 2023, scenes depicting patriotic poetry and music that had been cut from its only existing prints by occupation censors were restored for presentation of the film at the

Venice Film Festival The Venice Film Festival or Venice International Film Festival (, "International Exhibition of Cinematographic Art of the Venice Biennale") is an annual film festival held in Venice, Italy. It is the world's oldest film festival and one of the ...

Reception

''There Was a Father'' placed second in the

Kinema Junpo , commonly called , is Japan's oldest film magazine and began publication in July 1919. It was first published three times a month, using the Japanese ''Jun'' (旬) system of dividing months into three parts, but the postwar ''Kinema Junpō'' ha ...

's annual critics' poll of Japan's Best Ten films. It currently has a 100% rating on

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, 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 ...

. Trevor Johnston of '' Time Out'' praised Ryu's performance, arguing that the actor's "stoic underplaying offers a heartbreaking performance for the ages."

Richard Brody Richard Brody (born January 22, 1958) is an American film critic, filmmaker and author. Background Brody grew up in Roslyn, New York. He is Jewish and has personally identified as an atheist. Brody attended Princeton University, receiving a B ...

of ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. It was founded on February 21, 1925, by Harold Ross and his wife Jane Grant, a reporter for ''The New York T ...

'' wrote, "In such chilling nuances as Shuhei’s silent grief, his rigid deference to authority, his joyful anticipation of Ryohei’s military service, and Ryohei’s serene lessons on the destructive power of TNT, Ozu reveals a society heading blindly toward the abyss and destroying its future in the name of the past."

Home media

''There Was a Father'' was released on DVD along with Ozu's '' The Only Son'' by

The Criterion Collection The Criterion Collection, Inc. (or simply Criterion) is an American home video, home-video distribution company that focuses on licensing, restoring and distributing "important classic and contemporary films". A "sister company" of art film, arth ...

on July 13, 2010. In 2011, the BFI released a Region 2 Blu-ray and DVD of the film as a bonus feature on its Dual Format Edition (Blu-ray + DVD) of ''

Equinox Flower is a 1958 color Japanese film directed by Yasujirō Ozu which is based on a novel by Ton Satomi. Plot Wataru Hirayama (Shin Saburi) is a wealthy Tokyo businessman. When an old schoolmate Mikami (Chishū Ryū) approaches him for help concerning ...

''.

References

Bibliography

External links

*
''There Was a Father: Duty Calls''
an essay by

Tony Rayns Antony Rayns (born 1948) is a British writer, commentator, film festival programmer and screenwriter. He wrote for the underground publication ''Cinema Rising'' (its name inspired by Kenneth Anger's '' Scorpio Rising'') before contributing to ...

at the

Criterion Collection The Criterion Collection, Inc. (or simply Criterion) is an American home-video distribution company that focuses on licensing, restoring and distributing "important classic and contemporary films". A "sister company" of arthouse film distributo ...

{{Yasujirō Ozu 1942 films 1942 drama films Japanese drama films Japanese black-and-white films Films set in Tokyo Films directed by Yasujirō Ozu Films with screenplays by Tadao Ikeda Films with screenplays by Yasujirō Ozu Shochiku films