Early Spring

Office worker Shoji Sugiyama (Ryo IKEBE) braves crowded rush hour trains every morning to commute from Kamata to the head office of the Towa Firebrick Company on the seventh floor of the Maru Building. In eight years of marriage, relations with his wife Masako (Chikage AWASHIMA) have grown frigid since the death of their only child, and they rarely see eye to eye. One day while out hiking with his commuter friends, Sugiyama begins an illicit romance with one of them, a young woman named Chiyo Kaneko (Keiko KISHI). When Masako figures out what is going on, she decides that she can no longer tolerate the negligence of her husband, not only for his infidelity, but also for forgetting the anniversary of their child’s death, and leaves home. That day at work, Sugiyama learns of the death of one of his colleagues.

After depicting the worlds of middle-aged and aging characters in his works following “Late Spring” with a simple and refined touch, OZU turned his gaze toward the young generation, capturing the lifestyles and sorrows of salaried workers chained to their monthly paychecks, with a story that revolves around an affair between Sugiyama (Ryo IKEBE) and Chiyo (Keiko KISHI), the modern-minded girl who loves him.