Tokyo Chorus (1931)
Directed by Yasujirô Ozu

Film Review

In his 22nd film, Tokyo Chorus, it is easy to discern those characteristics that would mark Yasujirô Ozu out as the great filmmaker and observer of human nature that he would become in later years.  It had been only four years since Ozu had made his directing debut at Shochiku studio in Kamata and he was still in his explorative phase, developing his own formalism whilst trying to put his own mark on popular genres such as nonsense comedies (nansensu eiga) and home dramas (shomin-geki) that had become Shochiku's main stock-in-trade.  Eager to have a commercial success (something that had so far eluded him), Ozu combined these two genres with a third that was gaining popularity, the 'salary man film', and conjured up one of the most enjoyable and accessible of his silent films, Tokyo Chorus.

Although Ozu almost certainly had some input into the screenplay, the script is credited entirely to his long-term writing companion, Kôgo Noda, who worked with him on some of his greatest films, including Tokyo Story (1953) and Floating Weeds (1959).  The plot ideas came from a collection of stories by the writer Komatsu Kitamura, melded into a satisfying whole by Noda and containing many of the ingredients that would preoccupy Ozu for the rest of his career, most notably the dynamics of the modern Japanese middle class family.  In essence, Tokyo Chorus is a Depression Era comedy similar to those being made by socially conscious filmmakers, such as Charlie Chaplin, on the other side of the Pacific.  The grim realities of a family struggling to survive without a wage at a time of economic woe are visible throughout the film, but Ozu's approach is almost relentlessly optimistic.  No matter what obstacles get in the path of the hero, you know that he will somehow find a way to overcome them.

A feature of many of Ozu's films from around this period is that they would start on a comedic note, often resorting to Harold Lloyd-style slapstick, and suddenly become more serious and melancholic around the mid-point.  Tokyo Chorus is a good example of this.  It begins with what looks like a throwback to Ozu's early student comedies, with a hopelessly inept teacher struggling to instil some discipline into his ragtag class of students.  The knockabout humour persists for the next two scenes, first one of domestic mayhem with a troublesome little boy extorting the promise of a new bike from his father, and then one set in the office, which ends in a comical punch-up between an employee and his boss.  Along the way, there is an amusing digression in which the hero goes to increasingly desperate lengths to open an envelope containing his bonus without any of his colleagues seeing.  Not even Ozu is adverse to a spot of toilet humour, it seems.

Thirty minutes or so into the film, the mood abruptly changes and the trauma of being unemployed at a time of mass unemployment begins to impinge upon the light-hearted narrative.  Ozu revisits the central theme of his previous films I Flunked, But... (1930) and The Lady and the Beard (1931), namely that of graduate unemployment, but here he combines this pressing concern with a strikingly realistic portrait of family life in which we see the origins of his later masterworks.  The relationship between the father and the son has a particularly bitter edge to it and offers a foretaste of what we find in Ozu's subsequent Passing Fancy (1933) and There Was a Father (1942), intensely moving accounts of a devoted father failing to live up to his son's needs and expectations.

Throughout his career, Ozu was blessed with having a talented pool of actors at his disposal and Tokyo Chorus has an especially distinguished cast.  Here Ozu was able to work with three of his favourite actors - Tokihiko Okada, Tatsuo Saitô and Takeshi Sakamoto, the latter two made up to appear much older than they were.  Okada, one of Japan's most photogenic actors, had starred in three previous Ozu films - That Night's Wife (1930), Young Miss (1930), The Lady and the Beard (1931) - and he would doubtless have enjoyed a phenomenal screen career had he not died from tuberculosis in 1934 at the age of 31.  Saitô and Sakamoto were both immensely versatile character actors and Ozu made good use of their comedic and dramatic skills in many of his films.  The little girl who plays Okada's daughter in Tokyo Chorus was none other than Hideko Takamine, a highly regarded actress whose career spanned nine decades and who is famous for her collaborations with director Mikio Naruse, including Floating Clouds (1955) and When a Woman Ascends the Stairs (1960).

It's an impressive cast but, right from the off, it is Tokihiko Okada who steals the film in what would be his final (and finest) collaboration with Ozu.  Okada's flair for visual comedy is apparent from the very first scene but it is in the film's more serious scenes that he gives Ozu the most value for his money.  Like Chaplin, Okada could switch effortlessly from slapstick to heartrending pathos without harming the integrity of his performance - it is as if we suddenly see the same character from a different vantage point.  One stand-out scene is the one in which Okada's character, the young father Shinji, attempts to palm a cheap scooter off on his son, who, expecting a bike, goes off on a wild strop.  The scene is funny but also harrowingly true to life, and throughout it you can feel both the anguish of a disappointed son and the desolation of a father who sees, perhaps for the first time, his son's undying contempt for him. 

Just as impressive, and more typical of Ozu's later work, is the subtle interplay between the husband and wife as the cope with the slew of misfortunes that come their way.  As they set aside their differences and join their children in a jolly handclapping game you can sense the mutual antagonism that is beginning to ferment beneath the surface.  Theirs is not a perfect marriage and the strain of enforced poverty is clearly beginning to take its toll.  With the over-qualified college graduate forced into accepting the most demeaning of jobs, the prospects for this typical middle-class Japanese family could hardly look grimmer.  In the end, it is nostalgia that saves the day - loyalty to those happy student days when life was so much better.  The narrative closes with a burst of optimism of the kind that would become increasingly rare for Ozu over the next decade as he eschewed comedy in favour of a more authentic depiction of everyday life.

Film Synopsis

Some years after he graduated, Shinji Okajima has a young family and a job with an insurance company in Tokyo.  His son wants a bicycle and so, reluctantly, Shinji promises to buy him one with money from his annual bonus.  Having collected his bonus, Shinji learns that an older colleague of his has been unjustly dismissed.  When he comes to the old man's defence, Shinji gets into a heated argument with his boss and loses his job.  Unable to buy his son a bicycle, he gives him a scooter instead.  The little boy is unimpressed and throws a tantrum, forcing his father to spend the little money he has left on a bike for him.  Then Shinji's daughter falls ill and to pay for her hospital bill his only recourse is to sell his wife's kimono.  Shinji's attempts to find work are fruitless but things look up when he runs into his old teacher Mr Omura, who now manages a small curry restaurant.  Omura offers to help his former student find a job, and in return Shinji agrees to help advertise his restaurant.  When Shinji's wife sees him pounding the streets, carrying a large banner and handing out flyers, she is appalled...