Baseshment I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

Odelecol Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

Roman Sampson One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

Arianna Moses Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

treywillwest Western viewers want to find a stoical impulse in Ozu's world view, but I think a certain orientalism is at play in this. Surely this "genius from the east" must be telling us something... transcendental and wise! In fact, I think the two most constant themes in Ozu's films are the momentary joys of life, and the suffering that comes with the loss of loved ones, either to death, the demands of modernity, or some conspiracy between the two. Those two topics seem stripped particularly bare in this late work, a short one by the standards of the director. Ozu's longer films, particularly Tokyo Story, might literally be chamber dramas, but in their breadth of subject and number of characters they have an epic quality- a kaleidoscopic depiction of post-war Japanese society. This film, by comparison, truly is a chamber drama with a relatively tight focus on one central figure and those around him. The characters aren't meant to comment about anything but themselves, and their joys and sorrows are laid all the more bare.

kurosawakira Perfection perfection perfection! This is the penultimate film by the one filmmaker that somehow always continues to amaze me and reassert the power cinema has. It's like reading a haiku by Bashô, or a poem by Merwin. Something made in a different time and place, yet still so strongly present in the here and now.Regardless of the pervasive and thoroughly Ozuesque marriage dealings, this film is really about death. Its imminence, immutability. Its invisibility. The comedy, of which there's plenty, is balanced and ultimately cancelled out by what unfolds, and the final funeral procession is worthy of Welles' "Othello" (1952) in its bleak finality, and that smoke from the crematorium is among the darkest and most beautiful metaphors in all of Ozu — our life vanishes with our body either into the ground, or as is appropriate in the Japanese culture, into thin air. It vanishes. For a moment a kind of an emblem of it lingers in the air, and then even that token is gone.And as only Ozu can, there's always the comic undersong, no matter how dark the waters we're treading. (This works both ways, mind!) The past is on its way out, the present is colliding with the future. It's the old paterfamilias who's growing into a child again, rekindling an old flame, failing to act his age at the gate of death, and it's the daughter who tells him off (the brother all tight-lipped and spooked about mentioning it, failing to step up. As is often the case, the females are perfectly capable of coping not their own, thank you very much.I think Ozu's impact is the strongest when I'm away from him for a while. Then I get used to other ways of seeing things, yet when I go back to him the effect is stupendous: how he frames a shot of a doorway, a train station, of what seems to be the most "insignificant" transitory shot between scenes is beyond words. But it's always in that which many of us find "insignificant" where he finds a whole new universe waiting to be explored, and cherished. The beauty of his cinema is why I love film. It's the great friendship that lasts.Seeing as the BFI are either incapable or unwilling to complete their Ozu project and might not actually have the rights to this film anyway, and now that Criterion have pushed from the mainline into the Eclipse, I wonder when we might see a decent Blu-ray of this wonderful film.

eldino33 "Kohayagawa-ke no aki" reveals a spectacular display of color and form that only a true master of art can achieve. Yasujiro Ozu has outdone even himself in this regard. One can easily get lost in one scene after another and forget that a film is playing. It is a though one is in an art gallery of cultural art which happens of be that of Japan. Monet attempted to imitate the impressionistic art of Japan during his lifetime in the 19th century, as can be seen in his own collection. The trend seems reversed in the 20th century, with Ozu using the techniques of American and European hard-edge expressionist. The results are stunning, infinity better than his earlier works. The same scenes in black and white in 1956 are presented in 1963 with vivid complementary and contrasting color. Barrels against a wall are no longer just gray shades but brown tubs with white rims and adjacent white umbrellas and buildings. There are dozens of other equally impressive combinations. The most spectacular scenes are those without actors or minimal acting. But after all, this is a movie so one has acting and dialogue. Moving hand fans dominate many scenes to an almost hypnotic end. The striking neon sign of the NEW JAPAN presages the future. The Left Elbow Index considers film from seven perspectives--acting, production sets, artistry, character development, film continuity, plot and dialogue--with a rating of 10 for very good, 5 for average, and 1 for needs help. The sets, the artistry, and the plot are rated very good. The plots are intriguing: to marry or not, East vs West, and cultural change. The acting is average due to the fixed photo technique and the talking head approach. Dialogue is appropriate. However, character development and film continuity seem submerged in the attention to color and form. The LEI average rating is 6.0, with a full point more given for Ozu's quantum leap into a new world of color, resulting in a 7.0, or above average, equal to an 8 on the IMDb scale. If one is serious about film history, this movie is essential to understanding trends. I strongly recommend this film. Just sit back and enjoy one tableau after another. You may find your jaw dropping in wonder and awe.

maerte This film is a little bit disappointing. Ozu did not portrait human emotions as intensive as in "Tokyo Monogatari". Neither has the film the wit and humour of "Ohayo". He did not succeed to characterize the person as good as in other films. The setting of the action in Kyoto instead of Tokyo could have provided the possibility to represent the contrast the conflict between old Japan and "New Japan" in a more distinct way. But unfortunately Ozu produces some cliches. But after all what is a "bad" movie by Ozu in comparison to all the other stuff.