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Yoshii, his wife and their two sons, Ryoichi and Keiji, move into a Tokyo suburb. The head of Yoshii’s department lives nearby. When he invites Yoshii’s family and all the children in the neighbourhood to a film show at his house, Ryoichi and Keiji are thrilled to discover their father on the screen. But when he starts pulling all sorts of faces to please his boss and thereby – in the eyes of his sons – embarrasses himself in front of everyone, the two boys’ world is in tatters. Upon returning home, they demand an explanation for his undignified behaviour. “In this film Ozu brought together in almost perfect form the various elements which made up his style, his personal way of looking at the world. The picture is a shomin-geki, and the rigidity of Japanese society is well implied. It is about a family unit, whose members interest Ozu more than the unit. It is about children who innocently reflect the falseness of an adult society. Ozu goes further, suggesting that such innocence cannot continue. Though the film is a comedy, it is a serious one; the two little boys will never again be the same. Later, Ozu would realize, that innocence returns, and he would celebrate the somewhat battered simplicity of his older men who in this cold world have kept, though at a great cost, a kind of purity. In this 1932 film, so bright, so funny, he had not yet found it necessary to realize that innocence can, in a way, be retained.” Donald Richie
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