A Straightforward Boy (1929)
Directed by Yasujirô Ozu

Film Review

It's a shame that only 14 minutes of A Straightforward Boy survives as, going by what remains of it, it appears to be one of Yasujirô Ozu's purest comedies, untainted by the wistful melancholia that creeps into almost every one of his films.  Although 26 minutes of the original film is lost (mostly the middle portion), there is enough footage to tell a complete story and you'd hardly notice anything was missing.   The script, loosely based on O Henry's 1910 short story The Ransom of Red Chief, is credited to Nozu Chuji, a pseudonym for the team of Ozu, Noda Kogo, Ikeda Tadao and Okubo Tadamoto.  The film was apparently shot in just three days, a remarkable feat even for someone as productive as Ozu.

Tomio Aoki became a star in Japan at the age of six having played the lead role (that of the mischievous kidnap 'victim') in this film.  He had had a small part in Ozu's previous film The Life of an Office Worker (1929), on which the director was so taken with the little boy that he decided to give him the leading role in his next film.  Aoki adopted the film's Japanese title, Tokkan kozô (meaning 'A boy who charges about'), as his nickname.  He appeared in some of Ozu subsequent films - I Was Born, But... (1932), Passing Fancy (1933), and An Inn in Tokyo (1935) - and enjoyed a long career as a character actor, appearing in over a hundred films.  The two hapless kidnappers are played by two Ozu regulars, Tatsuo Saito and Takeshi Sakamoto.  The incredibly versatile Saito would play Aiko's father in I Was Born, But...

A lively farce that is sustained by its infectious sense of fun, A Straightforward Boy has numerous counterparts in 1920s American cinema and, whilst it may be a lesser work in his glittering filmography, Ozu directs the film with his customary visual flair and sensitivity for character.  And it is irresistibly funny, with Ozu taking his cue not from his usual comic icons, Charlie Chaplin and Harold Lloyd, but another master of slapstick: Mack Sennett.  Who needs a complicated custard pie set up when you have one demonic little boy with a water pistol?

Film Synopsis

Whilst he is busy playing hide-and-seek with his friends, six-year-old Tetsubo runs into a shifty looking man who immediately sets about befriending him.  The little boy cannot know that the stranger intends to kidnap him.  All he sees is a funny young man who can be cajoled into playing with him and buying him presents.  The kidnapper finally manages to get Tetsubo to his hideout, where the boy transfers his attention to his less playful boss.  Driven to distraction by the boy's antics, which involve him being soaked with a water pistol and repeatedly struck with toy arrows, the senior kidnapper orders his underling to take him back from where he came.  The young kidnapper's nightmare is far from over...