Devoted to both the profound necessity and the sublime silliness of gratuitous social interchange, Ohayo is a rather subtler and grander work than might appear at first. Commonly referred to as a remake of Ozu's silent masterpiece I Was Born, But …, it is as interesting for its differences as for its similarities…. [It] is the humiliations in the first film which provide much of the comedy, a subject assuming gravity only when it causes a rift between father and sons. But the more pervasive humour of Ohayo extends to the rebellion itself and all it engenders, as well as the various local intrigues surrounding it. Clearly one of Ozu's most commercially-minded movies—with its stately, innocuous muzak of xylophone and strings recalling Tati backgrounds, a similar tendency to keep repeating gags with only slight variations, and a performance of pure ham (quite rare in an Ozu film) by...