Synopsis
In Depression-era Tokyo, a young man struggles to provide for his family after he is fired from his job.
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Tokyo Chorus
Cast
Director
Writer
Story
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Cinematography
Assistant Directors
Set Decoration
Costume Design
Hairstyling
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Language
Alternative Titles
Tokyo no kōrasu, Le chœur de Tokyo, Il coro di Tokyo, Le Chœur de Tokyo, Tokiói kórus, 东京合唱, 동경합창, Токийский хор, Η Χορωδία του Τόκυο
Releases by Date
Theatrical
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Japan
Releases by Country
Japan
15 Aug 1931
- Theatrical
Popular reviews
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TOKYO CHORUS represents something of a shift in Ozu's thematic obsessions. Once again he's concerned with Depression-era Tokyo and the rabid fear of unemployment, but the emphasis is domesticated this time around, portending his later obsession with family life and the trials and tribulations that occur within the home.
I GRADUATED, BUT (1929), I FLUNKED, BUT (1930), and THE LADY AND THE BEARD (1931) are all college comedies tied together by a series of slapstick routines, running gags and single adult students who are desperate for work post-graduation, but TOKYO CHORUS is the first Depression era half-comedy that ties the trauma of being unemployed to raising a young family. THAT NIGHT’S WIFE (1930) is a close runner up, but it borders…
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Welcome to Juno's Flavours of Ozu. An Ozu season created by one of Letterboxd's best members.
I still somewhat struggle with a lot of Ozu's silent films. My issue, persistently, is that his filmmaking is so much more skewed to character focused drama. The films he is trying to make feel constrained by a lack of sound, rather than film's that take advantage of their supposed limitations.Of course, it's only a critique you can make from the present. Before the advent of sound, this would have worked. But, now, the cadence is off and the filmmaking distances me.
For all of that, there's good stuff here and some great character work. It's a solid narrative with expected but well…
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Now this is more like it.
Ozu finally realized his power in his style, and culminated his early version of it in this Tokyo Chorus, and it sings with such pathos and melancholy. Placing the first (s)tone at the very first scene with slapstick comedy and a hidden agenda to make a call back at the end. Filling the flow with many emotional packages; some juxtapositions of two different moods in one frame, sincerity of goodwill, helping to hide sadness together, surrendered man swallowed his pride, and statements of each characters about genuine love. And it worked with such a charming feeling, flowing the ups and downs and ups of the flow nicely.
Pride, naivety, and false moves with good…
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☆"Time flies and so did our three years at school...Friends, we shall miss your youthful faces."☆
The earliest of all the silent Yasuhirō Ozu features I've seen yet, the quality of 1931's Tōkyō no kōrasu ["Tokyo Chorus"] probably means I should quit while I'm ahead and not dig further into that first decade of his career. I bet they won't be much better than this one.
That's because although it does tread on similar ground to several of his later works, this warm-hearted comedy probably deserves to be praised alongside I Was Born, But… as the best of his early career.
In the beginning of the Shōwa period during an economic depression, once again we first watch a group of…
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Sixty in September: 28/60
Tokyo Chorus is sometimes considered Ozu's first "mature" work. And it definitely has a sense of coherence and completeness, of self-sufficiency in story and structure to set it apart from his earlier silents. While Ozu still experiments stylistically and many of his early techniques are in evidence here -- cutting to close-ups of hands or feet, tracking shots -- the tatami shot is also on full display and the feel of the film is classic Ozu. To my mind, it accomplishes an effective and emotional mixing of the genres Ozu has been working in up to this point -- student comedy, salaryman film, and home drama.
I've been watching as many of Ozu's silents in order…
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My third film from Yasujirō Ozu is a really good one. That Night's Wife was also really good but felt underdeveloped and The Lady and the Beard was painfully average and unfunny. As for 1931's Tokyo Chorus, it definitely has quite a few flaws but overall, I enjoyed it a lot.
The film starts off by introducing us to our main character, Shinji Okajima, during his school days and has some lovely slapstick comedy. Then, the film jumps forward to Shinji as an adult working family man. At first, I wasn't sure where things were going but it kept getting better and better which made me like it a lot. Ozu had made many films before this which focused on…
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From the moment a drill instructor runs out with a sashaying gait with a Groucho Marx mustache in the opening shots, you know you’re in for a treat. Here, the militarism that would engulf the early Showa period is still in comical infancy, and the lads who assemble for inspection are a haplessly uncoordinated lot. Indeed, there's even a sense of rebellion in Tokihiko Okada's Shinji, a refusal to go along with literal marching orders that is here rendered as amusingly defiant in a way that would not be permitted by the end of the decade. Yet even as Shinji goofs off and lounges, already a sense of portent hangs over the direction of his life, as evidenced by a…
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When Ozu was promoted to assistant director at Shochiku in the late 20s he had his choice of director. He chose Tadamoto Okubo—unpopular even for his time—a maker of "nonsense films", focused on gags and light on story. Ozu's rationale is unknown, but it is clear that at that point in his life he was greatly interested in comedy films a la Lubitsch or Lloyd, and once he made the switch to director he would start out making comedies, revealing himself as capable of creating visual humor in his own films.
Tokyo Chorus is a crossroads film. It was made after Ozu's "student comedies," but a few years before his complete transition to more serious material. He shows himself concerned…
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Cranes in the dark sky. The music of Tokyo, the haunt of its face, is in three parts. Taking of a source, building the factories to refine it, and having the hands to carry it outward. Your song can soar, but it will always simmer down soon enough.
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The way Ozu frames a shot is unlike anything I’ve ever seen and I’m obsessed.
Even more, the way he could fill my heart and break it simultaneously was unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. I haven’t had a film leave my heart so full and so aching at the same time in a very long time, if ever.
My first (full) Ozu and my first silent Japanese film in general and I’m absolutely in love.
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This is the earliest film in Ozu's career where I really see his style taking its full form. From the start of his career his directing and cinematography style has been recognizably Ozu, but here it's taken its final form. It's a family drama, and the interior scenes showing family life are fully Ozu, complete with his signature "pillow shot." The characters aren't quite looking at the camera when speaking yet, but they're getting closer. It's not a comedy or a crime film, but a true family drama about the depression era. If you wanted Ozu's normal style but in a silent film, this is a great pick.
Added to Yasujirō Ozu Ranked