If anyone out there needed further convincing to pick up Masters of Cinema's upcoming release of Ozu Yasujiro's
Floating Weeds, then this gorgeous new trailer should seal the deal. Hitting shelves in the UK on 3 December, in a dual format Blu-ray/DVD edition, the release marks the first time anywhere in the world that Ozu's 1959 remake of his own
Ukigusa Monogatari has been released on Blu-ray. If this newly scrubbed up trailer for the film is anything to go by - and it is - then MoC's exclusively restored new master is dazzling, making this far and away the best possible way to enjoy one of Ozu's most highly-praised later masterpieces.
Towards the end of his career, Japanese master Yasujirō Ozu (Tokyo Story; Late Spring; Early Summer; An Autumn Afternoon; Good Morning) returned to a story he had made some 25 years earlier as a silent, Ukigusa monogatari [A Story of Floating Weeds], for a magnificent colour reworking, photographed by legendary cinematographer Kazuo Miyagawa (Rashomon, Ugetsu monogatari).
When a travelling theatre troupe brings their show to a seaside port, Komajurō (Ganjirō Nakamura), an ageing actor, is reunited with his former lover, sake bar owner Oyoshi (Haruko Sugimura), and his illegitimate son Kiyoshi (Hiroshi Kawaguchi), to the distress of his current mistress Sumiko (Machiko Kyō).