Floating Weeds (1959)

Synopsis: Yasujiro Ozu changes his traditional focus on the family only to recreate it among the cantankerous and meandering travels of a small time kabuki troupe. This sumptuously filmed melodrama, a color... Yasujiro Ozu changes his traditional focus on the family only to recreate it among the cantankerous and meandering travels of a small time kabuki troupe. This sumptuously filmed melodrama, a color remake of an earlier Ozu silent film, A STORY OF FLOATING WEEDS, follows the troupe as they arrive at a small coastal village. The leader of the troupe, Komajuro Arashi, has ulterior motives, a long overdue visit with a former mistress and their illegitimate son Kiyoshi. The boy has seen his father so infrequently, that he believes him to be his uncle. This confusion continues as the past and present mistresses encounter each other, and a young actress from the troupe attempts to seduce and subsequently falls in love with the leader's son at the bequest of the current jealous mistress. A kind of Japanese madcap love story, FLOATING WEEDS, as with many Ozu films, is tinged with melancholy and failure nevertheless. The troupe fails and lovers are spurned, people have aged and changed, generations bristle and life must go on. [More]

Starring: Machiko Kyō, Ganjiro Nakamura, Haruko Sugimura, Ayako Wakao

Starring: Machiko Kyō, Ganjiro Nakamura, Haruko Sugimura, Ayako Wakao

Director: Yasujiro Ozu

Director: Yasujiro Ozu

[See More Credits]