Silent . Black and White . 100 minutes

Shochiku Kamata Studio

Written By
Ozu Yasujiro ('James Maki')
Ikeda Tadao

Cinematography
Sugimoto Shojiro

Cast
Sakamoto Takeshi (Kihachi)
Fushimi Nobuko (Harue)
Ohikata Den (Jiro)
Iida Choko (Otome)
Tomio Aoki (Tomio)
Tani Reiko (Barber)
Ryu Chishu (Man of boat)

Synopsis
Kihachi Kimura lives a hand to mouth existence raising his son Tomio. One day he meets Harue, who has nowhere to go. Besotted with her, he gets his friend Otome to take her in. But Harue loves his fellow-worker Jiro. Kihachi goes off the rails until Tomio has a tantrum. Jihachi gives him a huge sum of pocket money, and Tomio gets critically ill gorging on snacks. Jiro and Harue confess their love. He gets a loan to pay for Toimio's treatment, and takes on a job in Hokkaido. When Kihachi finds out, he rushes to take his place, but starts to miss his son and jumps ship to get back to Tokyo.

Thoughts from Ozu
While I was growing up in Fukagawa, there was a good-natured lay-about who frequented our house. He became my model for Kihachi. Since Ikeda Tadao had also come across many suck fellows in Okachimachi, we delineated his character together. There's a scene in which Kihachi's son gets teased by his classmates because his father is always running off to flirt with a girl he fancies. When the boy comes home from school, he ruins Kihachi's favorite plant. When Kihachi returns all flustered after seeing his dream girl, his glee turns to anger, and he gives his son a good thrashing. The boy hits back and the two get into a big scuffle. Eventually, Kihachi cools down and so does his son, who then bursts into tears. If the negatives still exists, I'd love to watch that scene again.

Personal Thoughts and Comments
With Passing Fancy Ozu place a sense of heartwarming comedy amongst the setting of a Tokyo slum. In the most thoughtful and beautifully realized expression, Ozu captures the essence of a father-son relationship. The setting of this film was a change from Ozu's earliest work. While his previous films dealt more with subjects of youth and college, Passing Fancy became a transition into the working world. Passing Fancy was the first of an eventual thematic trilogy of sorts about Kihachi, a stubborn everyday man with a good heart. In these films (which also include A Story of Floating Weeds and An Inn in Tokyo), Kihachi is played by Ozu-regular Takeshi Sakamoto. Through Ozu's open, unpredictable, and simplistic narrative style, as well as Sakamoto's incredible performance, a deeply complex emotional texture is revealed within this character as well as his son (who is played with equal brilliance by Tomio Aoki). The film opens with a remarkable sequence that details Ozu's mastery of comedy and visual expression. Passing Fancy is a masterpiece of silent cinema, and a film that stands among the most pivotal of all Ozu's work.