Black and White . 84 minutes

Shochiku Ofuna Studio

Written By
Ozu Yasujiro
Saito Ryosuke

Cinematography
Atsuta Yuharu

Music By
Ito Senji

Cast
Tanaka Kinuyo (Amamiya Tokiko)
Sano Shuji (Amamiya Shuichi)
Murate Chieko (Ida Akiko)
Ryu Chishu (Satake Kazuihiro)
Sakamoto Takeshi (Sakai Hikozo)
Takamatsu Eiko (Tsune)
Mizukami Reiko (Noma Orie)
Ayatani Chiyoko (Onoda Fusako)

Synopsis
While Shuichi is away at the front, his wife Tokiko prostitutes herself for one night to pay for thier son's hospital bills. On the first night of his return, she divulges her secret and he fires into a rarge. He vistis the brothel where Tokiko worked and meets anothers younger prositute. When he learns that she does it to support her family, he helps her find a job. However, he is still unable to forgive Tokiko, and pushes her down the stairs. It is only when he sees her suffering that he embraces her and resolves to start afresh.

Thoughts from Ozu
After completing Record of a Tenement Gentleman I wrote the sfript for The Moon Has Risen but due to all sorts of problems, it still hasn't been completed. Is the script not up to sctratch? Regarding one's works, it's inevitable that some might be failures. It dosn't huirt if one can benefit from these failures. Unfotantly, one could not say that for this particular flop.

Personal Thoughts and Comments
Though Ozu regarded this film as a failure, it remains among his most emotionally impacting films. Made just two years after the war and during the American occupation, A Hen in the Wind may be the most violent and disturbing film Ozu ever made. However, early traces of his postwar mastery style become evident (notably including compositions, and editing). A Hen in the Wind was the last film Ozu made without co-writer Kogo Noda. Fighting restrictions from the American occupation of Japan, Ozu poetically captures a postwar Japan that is equally tragic and hopeful. Perhaps the driving force of the films heavy emotional impact is from the performance of the great Kinuyo Tanaka, here playing a mother that must turn to prostitution in order to pay medical bills for her sick child, while her husband is away at war. The final images are particularly moving as after we see the couple embrace, Ozu follows with a serious of expressive shots concluding with a similar image that opened the film (there are slight poetic differences between the two).