There Was a Father

1942 [JAPANESE]

Drama

4
Rotten Tomatoes Critics - Rotten 82% · 10 reviews
Rotten Tomatoes Audience - Upright 82% · 250 ratings
IMDb Rating 7.5/10 10 3446 3.4K

math teacher single father schoolteacher textile worker father son relationship

Plot summary

Shuhei Horikawa, a poor schoolteacher, struggles to raise his son Ryohei by himself, despite neither money nor prospects.

720p.BluRay 1080p.BluRay
797.68 MB
1280*958
Japanese 2.0
NR
Subtitles us  
23.976 fps
1 hr 26 min
Seeds ...
1.45 GB
1444*1080
Japanese 2.0
NR
Subtitles us  
23.976 fps
1 hr 26 min
Seeds 2

Movie Reviews

Reviewed by kerpan 9 / 10

War-time Ozu

unavoidable spoilersThe second of Ozu's war-era films -- and the first to feature Chishu Ryu as "star". This film starts with the story of a teacher and his young son (in the 1920s). After one of the students under Ryu's care drowns on a school outing (after disobeying orders), Ryu resigns as a teacher due to his "failure". Ryu and his son then must split up, the son to go to middle school and Ryu to go to Tokyo to pay for his son's education. Even when the son (now played by Shuji Sano) is grown -- and teaching in an agricultural college -- the two remain separated (except for very rare, very short visits) due to Ryu's fanatic devotion to duty, an attitude he presses on his son as well. This film has typically been viewed as supporting the Japanese government's promotion of hierarchical paternalism. But, frankly Ryu's rigidity seems a bit "over the top" -- and, in the final moments of the film, it seems that his son (now just married to the daughter of Ryu's best friend from his teaching days) may not accept the concept that duty requires the squelching of all emotional ties.
Reviewed by zetes 8 / 10

Sometimes a little clunky (probably because it was edited post-war), but very good nonetheless

Lesser, but, of course, still fine Ozu. It might come off as better if it had not been edited by American censors after the war, or if the existing print were a little less damaged (it's easily the worst print I've ever seen Criterion put on DVD, and they apologize profusely in the booklet for it; of course, it's of the best quality that is available). Chishu Ryu, in his first starring role, plays the titular father. The film opens with him quitting his job as a teacher after a student under his supervision has died. A widower, he moves away from the city with his young son in tow. After he finds a good school, he abandons his son to move back to Tokyo, where he can find better work. The meat of the film is the torn relationship. The son isn't bitter, exactly - more hurt that his father is far away. When he grows up, he wants to quit his job as a teacher to move to Tokyo to be with his father, but his father refuses the idea. Every person must do their job the best they can. While the message of every citizen doing their duty is a part of the film's wartime propaganda, it doesn't really come off as such. It feels more like Ryu is always punishing himself for his own career failures, or maybe that he fears that his son will be a failure like himself if he quits his job. Yet Ryu's character never comes off as cold - he loves his son, and his son loves the heck out of him. It's as if the forced separation is pathological. All the scenes between the father and son are golden. I did think that whenever the film strayed from them it wasn't as strong, and the pacing feels a little weird at times (almost certainly from the editing the film suffered later on). The final moments are killer.
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