# Record of a Tenement Gentleman (長屋紳士録)
**Record of a Tenement Gentleman** (*Nagaya shinshiroku*, 長屋紳士録) is a 1947 Japanese black-and-white drama directed by Yasujiro Ozu and produced by the Shochiku Ofuna studio, released on May 20, 1947 with a running time of 72 minutes[1](https://www.shochiku.co.jp/cinema/database/02445/). It was Ozu's first film after World War II and his first film in five years, the longest production gap of his career, caused by the disruption of the war[2](https://www.sensesofcinema.com/2004/cteq/record_tenement_gentleman/). The story follows a widowed shopkeeper in a bombed-out Tokyo neighborhood who reluctantly takes in a lost boy and gradually grows attached to him[1](https://www.shochiku.co.jp/cinema/database/02445/).
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Release | May 20, 1947, Shochiku; 72 minutes, black and white, sound film[1](https://www.shochiku.co.jp/cinema/database/02445/) |
| Position in Ozu's career | His first postwar film and his first film in five years, the longest gap of his career[2](https://www.sensesofcinema.com/2004/cteq/record_tenement_gentleman/) |
| Principal cast | Choko Iida (Otane), Hohi Aoki (Kohei), Chishu Ryu (Tashiro), Eitaro Ozawa (the father), Takeshi Sakamoto (Kihachi)[3](https://www.allcinema.net/cinema/pdf/135005) |
| Key crew | Screenplay by Ozu and Tadao Ikeda; cinematography by Yuharu Atsuta; music by Ichiro Saito; produced by Mitsuzo Kubo[4](https://www.tcm.com/articles/1331002/record-of-a-tenement-gentleman) |
| Contemporary reception | 4th place in Kinema Junpo's 1947 Best Ten[5](https://www.bunkido.co.jp/archives/4928); not a financial or critical success at the time[4](https://www.tcm.com/articles/1331002/record-of-a-tenement-gentleman) |
| Restoration | 4K restoration premiered in the Cannes Classics section of the 2023 Cannes Film Festival[6](https://www.festival-cannes.com/en/2023/dual-tribute-to-ozu-nagaya-shinshiroku-record-of-a-tenement-gentleman/) |
## Spoilers
### Story
The setting is the shitamachi (old downtown) of Tokyo shortly after the end of the war, where reconstruction houses are beginning to appear among the ruins and familiar faces are returning[1](https://www.shochiku.co.jp/cinema/database/02445/). Otane (Choko Iida), who lost her husband and then her only child a few years earlier, runs her old dry-goods shop alone[1](https://www.shochiku.co.jp/cinema/database/02445/). Tashiro (Chishu Ryu), a fortune teller living nearby, brings in a boy of about seven or eight named Kohei (Hohi Aoki) who became separated from his father, and foists the child on Otane for a single night[1](https://www.shochiku.co.jp/cinema/database/02445/) • [10](https://www.justwatch.com/jp/%E6%98%A0%E7%94%BB/nagaya-shinshiroku).
Otane finds the boy a burden and looks for someone else to take him, but no household in the neighborhood is better placed to support him than her own[1](https://www.shochiku.co.jp/cinema/database/02445/). She travels with Kohei to [Chigasaki](https://www.edgepedia.org/chigasaki), the town where he once lived with his father, but no home or family can be found, and she has no choice but to bring him back[3](https://www.allcinema.net/cinema/pdf/135005). As their shared life continues, she is reminded of the child she lost, resolves to raise Kohei as her own, and the boy grows attached to her in turn[1](https://www.shochiku.co.jp/cinema/database/02445/). Then Kohei's father (Eitaro Ozawa), who had become separated from the boy while coming to Tokyo looking for work, unexpectedly appears. Otane sees the reunited father and son off with thanks and quietly wishes for the boy's true happiness[1](https://www.shochiku.co.jp/cinema/database/02445/).
## Production background
Ozu returned to Japan in 1946 from a prisoner-of-war camp near Singapore and immediately reentered the studio system, writing the script for the film in twelve days[7](https://rijs.fas.harvard.edu/events/ozu-film-series-hfa-record-tenement-gentleman). He had spent the war years in Singapore, where he was able to see a number of American films for the first time[4](https://www.tcm.com/articles/1331002/record-of-a-tenement-gentleman). The screenplay was written with Tadao Ikeda, Ozu's collaborator on prewar films, and the production reunited the regulars of his prewar Ozu-gumi ensemble, including Chishu Ryu, Takeshi Sakamoto, and Reikichi Kawamura; Shochiku's own account presents the film as the occasion on which the Ofuna studio's veteran actors gathered again and a new Ozu world began to take shape[1](https://www.shochiku.co.jp/cinema/database/02445/) • [8](https://kamakura-kawakita.org/screening/202105251400/).
The National Film Center in Tokyo describes the film as standing apart from the didactic films then being made in quantity, remaining within Ozu's own world, and places it on the same line as his silent-era "Kihachi" comedies, a drama of ordinary townspeople[9](https://www.nfaj.go.jp/FC/NFC_Calendar/98-4-5-kaisetsu.html).
## Title and style
The English title is widely considered misleading. The film is not about a gentleman but about a woman and a child; *shinshiroku* translates literally as "gentleman's record," akin to a directory, and the film scholar David Bordwell has suggested "A Who's Who of the Tenements" as a more accurate rendering[4](https://www.tcm.com/articles/1331002/record-of-a-tenement-gentleman) • [11](https://www.utupub.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/147830/Timonen_Topi_opinnayte.pdf%3Bjsessionid%3D2F03D4B2370BA85D934F34141B0D7533?sequence=1). *Nagaya* properly means a row house rather than the slum connotation of "tenement," though the setting, a war-ravaged neighborhood of residents selling handmade goods on the black market, gives the English word some justification[4](https://www.tcm.com/articles/1331002/record-of-a-tenement-gentleman).
The film's apparent sentimentality, a lost child softening a hardhearted woman, is held in check by the boy's stoicism, the absence of cute exchanges, and Ozu's avoidance of close-ups and scenes of emotional outpouring[2](https://www.sensesofcinema.com/2004/cteq/record_tenement_gentleman/). The Cannes festival program calls it a bittersweet tale in which selfishness rubs against tenderness without pathos, and highlights a musical scene in which dinner guests bang chopsticks against dishes until a melody forms[6](https://www.festival-cannes.com/en/2023/dual-tribute-to-ozu-nagaya-shinshiroku-record-of-a-tenement-gentleman/).
## Reception and later standing
Contemporary reception was mixed. The film placed 4th in Kinema Junpo's 1947 Best Ten[5](https://www.bunkido.co.jp/archives/4928), but according to [Turner Classic Movies](https://www.edgepedia.org/turner-classic-movies) it was not a financial or critical success; two years later *Late Spring* restored Ozu to his place among the leading Japanese directors[4](https://www.tcm.com/articles/1331002/record-of-a-tenement-gentleman). A scholarly account of Ozu's early postwar work records that both *Record of a Tenement Gentleman* and *[A Hen in the Wind](https://www.edgepedia.org/a-hen-in-the-wind)* (1948), which attempted a reconstruction of the communal consciousness of old Tokyo, were criticized at the time as depicting an "unreal" Tokyo[12](https://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/id/eprint/49454/1/WRAP_THESIS_Joo_2011.pdf).
Later assessments have been warmer. Rotten Tomatoes records a 100% critics' score from 13 reviews[13](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/record_of_a_tenement_gentleman), and the film is now distributed on streaming services in Japan[10](https://www.justwatch.com/jp/%E6%98%A0%E7%94%BB/nagaya-shinshiroku). In 2023, for the 120th anniversary of Ozu's birth, Shochiku produced a 4K restoration, performed by IMAGICA Entertainment Services and financed by J-LOD, which received its world premiere in the Cannes Classics section of the Cannes Film Festival and its Asian premiere at the 36th Tokyo International Film Festival[6](https://www.festival-cannes.com/en/2023/dual-tribute-to-ozu-nagaya-shinshiroku-record-of-a-tenement-gentleman/) • [14](https://www.cinemaclassics.jp/ozu/movie/2869/).
## Place in Ozu's work
The film depicts the chaos of urban life in a defeated country more openly than most of Ozu's films, with its bombed-out streets and displaced children, though his aim, in the TCM account, was never truly sociological[4](https://www.tcm.com/articles/1331002/record-of-a-tenement-gentleman). The Cannes program identifies its recurring Ozu themes as fragmented families, set against postwar reconstruction and the emerging cultural influence of the United States[6](https://www.festival-cannes.com/en/2023/dual-tribute-to-ozu-nagaya-shinshiroku-record-of-a-tenement-gentleman/). A Criterion Collection essay groups it with *A Hen in the Wind* as the scabrous first two postwar works, portrayals of a corrupt, demilitarized, firebombed landscape that swallows the vulnerable, before the calmer register of *Late Spring*[15](https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/421-late-spring-home-with-ozu). Because the bond between Otane and Kohei is formed between strangers rather than blood relatives, one recent study reads the film as an abstraction of the family that stresses the tenuousness of kinship, a configuration unusual in Ozu's work[16](https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/8332-deeper-into-ozu%3Fsrsltid%3DAfmBOopHMrbnDxOzliRxZ012-9BiDtUUNbuKYJmnIkZctD1dxfmpwGWa).
## References
1. [長屋紳士録, Shochiku film database](https://www.shochiku.co.jp/cinema/database/02445/)
2. [Michael Price (2004). Record of a Tenement Gentleman, Senses of Cinema](https://www.sensesofcinema.com/2004/cteq/record_tenement_gentleman/)
3. [長屋紳士録 (1947), allcinema](https://www.allcinema.net/cinema/pdf/135005)
4. [Rob Nixon (2017). Record of a Tenement Gentleman, Turner Classic Movies](https://www.tcm.com/articles/1331002/record-of-a-tenement-gentleman)
5. [長屋紳士録, BUNKIDO](https://www.bunkido.co.jp/archives/4928)
6. [Tarik Khaldi (2023). Dual tribute to Ozu: Nagaya Shinshiroku, Festival de Cannes](https://www.festival-cannes.com/en/2023/dual-tribute-to-ozu-nagaya-shinshiroku-record-of-a-tenement-gentleman/)
7. [Ozu Film Series at HFA: Record of a Tenement Gentleman, Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies, Harvard University](https://rijs.fas.harvard.edu/events/ozu-film-series-hfa-record-tenement-gentleman)
8. [長屋紳士録, Kawakita Memorial Film Institute, Kamakura](https://kamakura-kawakita.org/screening/202105251400/)
9. [日本映画の発見IV：占領下のNIPPON, National Film Center, Tokyo](https://www.nfaj.go.jp/FC/NFC_Calendar/98-4-5-kaisetsu.html)
10. [長屋紳士録, JustWatch](https://www.justwatch.com/jp/%E6%98%A0%E7%94%BB/nagaya-shinshiroku)
11. [Topi Timonen. Contemporary emotional poverty: Record of a Tenement Gentleman (1947), University of Tampere](https://www.utupub.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/147830/Timonen_Topi_opinnayte.pdf%3Bjsessionid%3D2F03D4B2370BA85D934F34141B0D7533?sequence=1)
12. [Joo, Woo (2011). PhD thesis, University of Warwick](https://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/id/eprint/49454/1/WRAP_THESIS_Joo_2011.pdf)
13. [Record of a Tenement Gentleman, Rotten Tomatoes](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/record_of_a_tenement_gentleman)
14. [長屋紳士録 Record of a Tenement Gentleman, Shochiku Cinema Classics](https://www.cinemaclassics.jp/ozu/movie/2869/)
15. [Late Spring: Home with Ozu, The Criterion Collection](https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/421-late-spring-home-with-ozu)
16. [Deeper into Ozu, The Criterion Collection](https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/8332-deeper-into-ozu%3Fsrsltid%3DAfmBOopHMrbnDxOzliRxZ012-9BiDtUUNbuKYJmnIkZctD1dxfmpwGWa)
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*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 1940s*
*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
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