best film: Tokyo Story is known as Ozu’s masterpiece and righty so- but Ozu’s work was so consistent (and consistently brilliant) that he’s a body of work auteur—not an auteur that’s stature is built on by his/her masterpieces (like say Kubrick or Ridley Scott). Basically that just means that while Tokyo Story is Ozu’s best (and Ruy’s) Late Spring, Early Summer, and a half dozen others are right there. His two films with Kurosawa didn’t happen to be among Kurosawa’s masterpieces so they don’t contend here.
best performance: . Late Spring and there are two choices here because There Was a Father is gut-wrenchingly painful and Ryu is ever-so-good. In Late Spring Ryu is paired up Setsuko Hara. So this is the greatest of all Ozu female actresses paired with the greatest of all Ozu male actors (Ryu). Their relationship is incredibly complex—the characters so rich.
stylistic innovations/traits: In typical Ozu fashion Ryu is known for having the tremendous gift of subtlety. In countless scenes in great films throughout the Ozu oeuvre Ryu is hit with tough news, emotional situations, death, and tragedy and he underplays it. It’s fantastic acting that has aged so well. Ryu worked with Ozu in almost all of his films. In many of them he’s an extra or just shows up for a scene (A Story of Floating Weeds, Equinox Flower) but in others he’s an essential part of the ensemble (Tokyo Story) and still further in others he’s the lead or co-lead (Late Spring, There Was a Father). He could sing. He could play a man of 80 and then play a man of 40 the next year (in one occasion he’s Hara’s father and in another he’s an older brother). 21 films and counting (as I discover older works) in the archives. He has 245 IMDB credits as an actor.
directors worked with: Ozu (18 films) and this is the crucial pairing. 2 films with Kurosawa
Top 5 Performances:
- Late Spring
- There Was a Father
- Tokyo Story
- Early Summer
- A Hen in the Wind
Archiveable films
| 1931- Tokyo Chorus |
| 1932- I Was Born, But |
| 1934- A Story of Floating Weeds |
| 1936- The Only Son |
| 1941- The Brothers and Sisters of the Toda Family |
| 1942- There Was a Father |
| 1947- Record of a Tenement Gentleman |
| 1948- A Hen in the Wind |
| 1949- Late Spring |
| 1951- Early Summer |
| 1952- Flavor of Green Tea Over Rice |
| 1953- Tokyo Story |
| 1956- Early Spring |
| 1958- Equinox Flower |
| 1958- Rickshaw Man |
| 1959- Floating Weeds |
| 1959- Good Morning |
| 1960- Late Autumn |
| 1962- An Autumn Afternoon |
| 1965- Red Beard |
| 1990- Dreams |
@Drake-Chishu Ryu shows up in Schrader’s Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters(1985).
@Malith- thank you
@Drake
Kinoshita: Army, Carmen Comes Home, Twenty Four Eyes, She Was like a Wild Chrysanthemum, Boyhood, Port of Flowers
Shimizu: Star Athlete, Ornamental Hairpin, Introspection Tower
More from both and from others that I’ve not seen
Ozu: 52 films out of 54. I’ll leave it to you to list them. Walk Cheerfully is one of the two in which he doesn’t show up
@Wele- thanks for the comment. There will be more here when I update the page but I am sticking to films currently in the archives. Many of these either do not make it, or I haven’t seen and will have to catch up with at some point.