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 "title": "Floating Weeds (浮草)",
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 "excerpt": "Floating Weeds (浮草, Ukigusa) is Yasujiro Ozu's 1959 Daiei color drama, a self-remake of his 1934 silent A Story of Floating Weeds, shot by Kazuo Miyagawa with Nakamura Ganjirō II, Machiko Kyō, and Ayako Wakao.",
 "snippet": "Floating Weeds (浮草, Ukigusa) is Yasujiro Ozu's 1959 Daiei color drama, a self-remake of his 1934 silent A Story of Floating Weeds, shot by Kazuo Miyagawa with Nakamura Ganjirō II, Machiko Kyō, and Ayako Wakao.",
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 "markdown": "# Floating Weeds (浮草)\n\n**Floating Weeds** (浮草, *Ukigusa*) is a 1959 Japanese color drama directed by Yasujiro Ozu (小津安二郎), produced by Daiei, and released in Japan on November 17, 1959. It is Ozu's own remake of his 1934 silent film *A Story of Floating Weeds* (浮草物語), restaged in color and in a seaside setting, with cinematography by Kazuo Miyagawa (宮川一夫) in the only film the two men made together.<sup>[1](https://cinemakadokawa.jp/product/entry-4782.html)</sup><sup> • </sup><sup>[2](https://www.criterion.com/boxsets/369-a-story-of-floating-weeds-floating-weeds-two-films-by-yasujiro-ozu)</sup><sup> • </sup><sup>[3](https://ifi.ie/film/floating-weeds/)</sup>\n\n| Key fact | Detail |\n|---|---|\n| Release | November 17, 1959, Daiei; 119 minutes, color, 1.37:1<sup>[1](https://cinemakadokawa.jp/product/entry-4782.html)</sup><sup> • </sup><sup>[4](https://www.criterion.com/films/349)</sup> |\n| Director and script | Directed by Yasujiro Ozu; screenplay by Ozu and Kogo Noda (野田高梧)<sup>[5](https://nfad.nfaj.go.jp/det.php?data_id=106035)</sup> |\n| Cinematography | Kazuo Miyagawa, in his only collaboration with Ozu<sup>[3](https://ifi.ie/film/floating-weeds/)</sup> |\n| Source | Self-remake of Ozu's 1934 silent *A Story of Floating Weeds*<sup>[2](https://www.criterion.com/boxsets/369-a-story-of-floating-weeds-floating-weeds-two-films-by-yasujiro-ozu)</sup> |\n| Principal cast | Nakamura Ganjirō II (Komajuro), Machiko Kyō (Sumiko), Ayako Wakao (Kayo), Hiroshi Kawaguchi (Kiyoshi), Haruko Sugimura (Oyoshi), Chishu Ryu (theater owner)<sup>[4](https://www.criterion.com/films/349)</sup> |\n| Setting | A small port town on the Shima Peninsula, where the troupe plays the Aioi-za theater<sup>[6](https://eiga.com/movie/34865/)</sup> |\n| Restoration | 4K digital restoration reproducing the original Agfacolor, screened in 2018 and released on Blu-ray by Kadokawa on June 29, 2018<sup>[7](https://www.nfaj.go.jp/wp-content/uploads/Hakkutsu2018_release0109.pdf)</sup><sup> • </sup><sup>[1](https://cinemakadokawa.jp/product/entry-4782.html)</sup> |\n\n## Spoilers\n\n### Story\n\nA traveling theater troupe led by the aging actor Komajuro (嵐駒十郎) arrives in a small port town in midsummer. Komajuro has arranged periodic performances there because his former lover Oyoshi, who runs a small restaurant, lives in the town with their son Kiyoshi, who works at the post office and is studying to enter a higher school. Komajuro has posed as Kiyoshi's uncle since the boy was small, reasoning that having a father in the disreputable itinerant acting trade would embarrass him.<sup>[1](https://cinemakadokawa.jp/product/entry-4782.html)</sup><sup> • </sup><sup>[8](https://doi.org/10.11477/mf.1611201808)</sup>\n\nSumiko, the troupe's leading actress and Komajuro's current mistress, learns of the arrangement and grows jealous. She bribes the young actress Kayo to seduce Kiyoshi, but the two fall genuinely in love, and Komajuro, who regards traveling players as beneath his son, tries to break the relationship apart.<sup>[1](https://cinemakadokawa.jp/product/entry-4782.html)</sup><sup> • </sup><sup>[9](https://nanaelibrary.jpn.org/movie/nihon/1959_n.html)</sup> The troupe eventually collapses and disbands; Komajuro sells the costumes and props, gives the money to his actors for their travel expenses, parts from them, visits Oyoshi's shop, and finally leaves town, meeting Sumiko at the station and departing with her.<sup>[9](https://nanaelibrary.jpn.org/movie/nihon/1959_n.html)</sup><sup> • </sup><sup>[6](https://eiga.com/movie/34865/)</sup>\n\n## The 1934 original and the remake\n\nThe 1934 *A Story of Floating Weeds* was a silent film with recorded music, produced by Shochiku's Kamata studio, scripted by Tadao Ikeda from an original by James Maki, and photographed by Hideo Mohara. It was the third of three consecutive years in which Ozu took first place in Kinema Junpo's annual best-film poll, after *I Was Born, But...* (1932) and *Passing Fancy* (1933).<sup>[10](https://www.kinenote.com/main/public/cinema/detail.aspx?cinema_id=65248)</sup><sup> • </sup><sup>[11](https://note.com/anonymity251005/n/n90f3560fea96)</sup>\n\nThe remake keeps the story's core but changes its setting and medium. In 1934 the troupe arrives by train at Narai-juku on the Nakasendo, a post town in the mountains; in 1959 it arrives by boat at a port town on the Shima Peninsula.<sup>[12](https://nanaelibrary.jpn.org/movie/nihon/1934_n.html)</sup> The film critic Donald Richie, writing for the Criterion Collection, observed that the 1959 version uses the same continuity as the 1934 film: the opening shots of the railway station and the port are almost identical, the dialogue differs mainly in complaints about heat instead of rain, and both versions share the argument-in-the-rain sequence, the final scene in the railway station, and the final shot of the disappearing train. Only one actor appears in both films, Koji (Hideo) Mitsui, who plays the son in 1934 and a thieving actor in 1959.<sup>[13](https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/320-stories-of-floating-weeds)</sup>\n\n## Production and style\n\nOzu made the film at Daiei rather than his home studio Shochiku; a contemporary account notes it had originally been planned as a Shochiku production under the title *Daikon Yakusha* (大根役者, roughly \"ham actor\") before the plan changed and another studio took it on.<sup>[8](https://doi.org/10.11477/mf.1611201808)</sup> Because Daiei produced it, Miyagawa served as cinematographer; he had shot *Rashomon* for [Akira Kurosawa](https://www.edgepedia.org/akira-kurosawa) and *Ugetsu monogatari* for [Kenji Mizoguchi](https://www.edgepedia.org/kenji-mizoguchi), and *Floating Weeds* was his only film with Ozu.<sup>[3](https://ifi.ie/film/floating-weeds/)</sup><sup> • </sup><sup>[14](https://www.cinematoday.jp/news/N0075298)</sup>\n\nMiyagawa's presence altered Ozu's usual style. The film partly revises Ozu's trademark low, fixed camera positions, gaining high-angle camerawork and intense color that contemporaries read as uncharacteristic of the director; the rain-soaked lovers' quarrel carries an emotional violence far from the restraint of *Late Spring* or *Tokyo Story*. Casting the kabuki actor Nakamura Ganjirō II in the lead gave the film a strength other Ozu works lack, leading one critic to speak of \"Ozu kabuki\" (小津歌舞伎), and some reviewers of the time placed it outside the Ozu mainstream as an outlier.<sup>[14](https://www.cinematoday.jp/news/N0075298)</sup><sup> • </sup><sup>[11](https://note.com/anonymity251005/n/n90f3560fea96)</sup> The color was shot on [Agfacolor](https://www.edgepedia.org/agfacolor) stock, processed at Tokyo Lab.<sup>[5](https://nfad.nfaj.go.jp/det.php?data_id=106035)</sup>\n\nThe film was made in the same year as Ozu's *Good Morning* (お早よう), with the same writing partnership of Ozu and Noda.<sup>[6](https://eiga.com/movie/34865/)</sup> In February 1959 Ozu received the Japan Art Academy Prize, the first person working in film to do so, in the year both films were produced.<sup>[11](https://note.com/anonymity251005/n/n90f3560fea96)</sup>\n\n## Reception and afterlife\n\nContemporary Japanese commentary treated the film as a gentle human drama about the hardships of itinerant players, noting Ozu's humor and character drawing and his low camera capturing the troupe's bittersweet life.<sup>[8](https://doi.org/10.11477/mf.1611201808)</sup> Later English-language criticism has been broadly favorable: Rotten Tomatoes lists a 96% critics score from 23 reviews, and Roger Ebert, the [Pulitzer Prize](https://www.edgepedia.org/pulitzer-prize)-winning film critic of the *Chicago Sun-Times*, added it to his Great Movies series in 1997, writing that for him the film was \"like a familiar piece of music\" he could turn to for reassurance.<sup>[15](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/floating_weeds)</sup><sup> • </sup><sup>[16](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-floating-weeds-1959)</sup>\n\nThe film has remained in circulation through home video and restoration. [The Criterion Collection](https://www.edgepedia.org/the-criterion-collection) issued it on DVD in 2004 paired with the 1934 original as spine #232, and a 4K restoration was released on Blu-ray by [Criterion](https://www.edgepedia.org/criterion) in 2024.<sup>[17](https://www.criterionforum.org/Video/floating-weeds-the-masters-of-cinema-series-dual-format-edition)</sup><sup> • </sup><sup>[2](https://www.criterion.com/boxsets/369-a-story-of-floating-weeds-floating-weeds-two-films-by-yasujiro-ozu)</sup> In Japan, a 4K digital restoration aimed at reproducing the historical Agfacolor palette was screened in the Film Center's \"Cinema: Lost and Found 2018\" program and released by Kadokawa on Blu-ray on June 29, 2018, with commentary tracks by art director Akemi Inoue, cinematographer Akira Kitasaki, and film critic Sadao Yamane.<sup>[7](https://www.nfaj.go.jp/wp-content/uploads/Hakkutsu2018_release0109.pdf)</sup><sup> • </sup><sup>[1](https://cinemakadokawa.jp/product/entry-4782.html)</sup> The National Film Archive of Japan holds both 35mm and 16mm release prints; its catalog lists the 35mm print at 121 minutes, while most reference sources give the running time as 119 minutes.<sup>[5](https://nfad.nfaj.go.jp/det.php?data_id=106035)</sup><sup> • </sup><sup>[1](https://cinemakadokawa.jp/product/entry-4782.html)</sup>\n\nThe title refers to *ukigusa*, duckweed, a plant that floats aimlessly on the current and has long served in Japanese prose and poetry as an emblem of drifting lives, here the itinerant actors themselves.<sup>[13](https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/320-stories-of-floating-weeds)</sup>\n\n## References\n\n1. [浮草 | 角川シネマコレクション (Kadokawa Cinema Collection)](https://cinemakadokawa.jp/product/entry-4782.html)\n2. [A Story of Floating Weeds / Floating Weeds: Two Films by Yasujiro Ozu, The Criterion Collection](https://www.criterion.com/boxsets/369-a-story-of-floating-weeds-floating-weeds-two-films-by-yasujiro-ozu)\n3. [Floating Weeds, Irish Film Institute](https://ifi.ie/film/floating-weeds/)\n4. [Floating Weeds (1959), The Criterion Collection](https://www.criterion.com/films/349)\n5. [国立映画アーカイブ所蔵映画フィルム検索システム：浮草 (National Film Archive of Japan)](https://nfad.nfaj.go.jp/det.php?data_id=106035)\n6. [浮草：作品情報・あらすじ, 映画.com](https://eiga.com/movie/34865/)\n7. [東京国立近代美術館フィルムセンター プレスリリース「発掘された映画たち 2018」](https://www.nfaj.go.jp/wp-content/uploads/Hakkutsu2018_release0109.pdf)\n8. [浮草（大映）, 助産婦雑誌 13巻12号 (1959年12月), 医書.jp](https://doi.org/10.11477/mf.1611201808)\n9. [日本映画レビュー─1959年：浮草](https://nanaelibrary.jpn.org/movie/nihon/1959_n.html)\n10. [浮草物語：作品情報, KINENOTE](https://www.kinenote.com/main/public/cinema/detail.aspx?cinema_id=65248)\n11. [小津安二郎の「浮草物語」と「浮草」のレビュー, note](https://note.com/anonymity251005/n/n90f3560fea96)\n12. [日本映画レビュー──1934年：浮草物語](https://nanaelibrary.jpn.org/movie/nihon/1934_n.html)\n13. [Stories of Floating Weeds, The Criterion Collection](https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/320-stories-of-floating-weeds)\n14. [自作をリメイクした『浮草』（1959）, シネマトゥデイ](https://www.cinematoday.jp/news/N0075298)\n15. [Floating Weeds, Rotten Tomatoes](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/floating_weeds)\n16. [Floating Weeds movie review, RogerEbert.com](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-floating-weeds-1959)\n17. [Floating Weeds (Criterion/Masters of Cinema editions), Criterion Forum](https://www.criterionforum.org/Video/floating-weeds-the-masters-of-cinema-series-dual-format-edition)\n\n---\n*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Drama and biographical films (individual works) › Drama films 1950s*\n\n*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*\n\n*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*\n\nLicense: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license\n",
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 "speakable": "Floating Weeds is Yasujiro Ozu's 1959 Daiei color drama, a self-remake of his 1934 silent A Story of Floating Weeds, shot by Kazuo Miyagawa with Nakamura Ganjirō II, Machiko Kyō, and Ayako Wakao."
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