# Woman of Tokyo (東京の女)
**Woman of Tokyo** (東京の女, *Tōkyō no onna*) is a 1933 Japanese silent drama directed by Yasujiro Ozu and produced by Shochiku at its Kamata studio, in which a young woman secretly supports her student brother through sex work, with fatal consequences when he learns of it.[1](https://nfad.nfaj.go.jp/det.php?data_id=1291&mode=1) • [2](https://www.shochiku.co.jp/cinema/database/01496/) It premiered in Japan on 9 February 1933 and runs about 47 minutes, an unusually short length for a feature that has drawn comment from programmers and critics.[2](https://www.shochiku.co.jp/cinema/database/01496/) • [3](https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/6676-ozu-in-nyc-and-la)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Release | 9 February 1933, distributed by Shochiku; silent, black and white, 35 mm[2](https://www.shochiku.co.jp/cinema/database/01496/) • [1](https://nfad.nfaj.go.jp/det.php?data_id=1291&mode=1) |
| Runtime | 47 minutes per Shochiku; the National Film Archive of Japan's print measures 46 minutes[2](https://www.shochiku.co.jp/cinema/database/01496/) • [1](https://nfad.nfaj.go.jp/det.php?data_id=1291&mode=1) |
| Key credits | Screenplay Kogo Noda and Tadao Ikeda; cinematography Hideo Shigehara; art direction Takashi Kanesu[1](https://nfad.nfaj.go.jp/det.php?data_id=1291&mode=1) |
| Principal cast | Yoshiko Okada (Chikako), Ureo Egawa (Ryoichi), Kinuyo Tanaka (Harue), Shin'yō Nara (Kinoshita, a policeman), Chishū Ryū (a reporter)[4](https://3rada.silentera.com/PSFL/data/T/TokyoNoOnna1933.html) |
| Production speed | Shot in a little over a week[5](https://www.criterionchannel.com/films/XxhEiyHy/woman-of-tokyo) |
| Fictitious source | The opening intertitle credits a novel *Twenty-Six Hours* by the Austrian author Ernst Schwartz, who does not exist[6](https://harvardfilmarchive.org/calendar/woman-of-tokyo-2023-07/1) |
| Embedded footage | Incorporates footage from the 1932 American compilation film *If I Had a Million*, including Charles Laughton[4](https://3rada.silentera.com/PSFL/data/T/TokyoNoOnna1933.html) • [7](https://www.newyorker.com/goings-on-about-town/movies/woman-of-tokyo) |
## Spoilers
### Plot
Ryoichi (Ureo Egawa), a university student, lives with his older sister Chikako (Yoshiko Okada), who tells him she works as a typist by day and helps a professor with translation in the evenings.[2](https://www.shochiku.co.jp/cinema/database/01496/) In reality, her night work is as a dance-hall hostess and prostitute, and it is her earnings that pay his tuition.[5](https://www.criterionchannel.com/films/XxhEiyHy/woman-of-tokyo)
The secret travels through the film's small circle of characters. Harue (Kinuyo Tanaka), Ryoichi's girlfriend and the girl next door, hears the rumor from her brother Kinoshita (Shin'yō Nara), a policeman who is investigating Chikako, and passes it to Ryoichi.[7](https://www.newyorker.com/goings-on-about-town/movies/woman-of-tokyo) • [8](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0024676/plotsummary/) Ryoichi first denies the rumor and quarrels with Harue, then confronts his sister; the rumor proves true, and he strikes her before leaving the apartment.[2](https://www.shochiku.co.jp/cinema/database/01496/) The next day the police inform Chikako that her brother has killed himself; the [Criterion](https://www.edgepedia.org/criterion) account specifies that he throws himself in front of a train.[2](https://www.shochiku.co.jp/cinema/database/01496/) • [3](https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/6676-ozu-in-nyc-and-la) The film closes with reporters who, finding no story in Chikako's answers, walk away laughing.[8](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0024676/plotsummary/)
## Production
**A deliberate silent film.** Ozu made *Woman of Tokyo* two years after sound had been introduced to Japanese movie audiences. In a passage quoted by the director Kiju Yoshida, Ozu explained: "I know Japanese films will become all talkies one day, but before they do I think we should create a new silent form."[3](https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/6676-ozu-in-nyc-and-la) The film was apparently planned as a sound production but was eventually shot silent.[9](https://festival.ilcinemaritrovato.it/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/06/Cinema-Ritrovato-2012-catalogo-pdf.pdf)
**The fictitious author.** The opening intertitle states that the film is based on the novel *Twenty-Six Hours* by the Austrian author Ernst Schwartz. No such author exists, and the Harvard Film Archive describes the intertitle as the only joke in this quickly but skillfully made film; Shochiku's own database likewise notes that the credited original author is a fictitious person.[6](https://harvardfilmarchive.org/calendar/woman-of-tokyo-2023-07/1) • [2](https://www.shochiku.co.jp/cinema/database/01496/)
**Style and resources.** The limited resources available to Ozu led him to inventive solutions involving props: objects placed in the foreground to simulate depth, and cuts to objects in isolation as a form of caesura between moments of action.[6](https://harvardfilmarchive.org/calendar/woman-of-tokyo-2023-07/1) The Criterion Channel notes the film's sophisticated compositional touches, including Ozu's emerging use of "pillow shots", the cutaway views of objects and scenery that became associated with his later style.[5](https://www.criterionchannel.com/films/XxhEiyHy/woman-of-tokyo) • [10](https://player.bfi.org.uk/subscription/film/watch-woman-of-tokyo-1933-online) Ozu himself recalled that his screen positions, including low camera angles, were settled around this period of his career.[11](https://cinemaplus.shochiku.co.jp/titles/detail/12/)
## Themes and reception
The film is among Ozu's bleakest, explicitly addressing sex work and suicide, topics that reappear in the later *[A Hen in the Wind](https://www.edgepedia.org/a-hen-in-the-wind)* (1948) and *[Tokyo Twilight](https://www.edgepedia.org/tokyo-twilight)* (1957).[6](https://harvardfilmarchive.org/calendar/woman-of-tokyo-2023-07/1) Richard Brody, writing in *The New Yorker*, described the restrained, tremulous performances as capturing the tension of decorum and secrecy, and credited Ozu's intensely expressive images with conjuring inner disorder.[7](https://www.newyorker.com/goings-on-about-town/movies/woman-of-tokyo)
**A cut political detail.** According to the film historian Tadao Sato, in the original script Chikako gave some of her earnings to the Communist Party as well as to her brother for his education; the released film omits this.[12](https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/ozu-yasujiro-master-time) The Harvard Film Archive argues that removing the detail flattens the characters while making for a more unsettling depiction of male entitlement to female sacrifice.[6](https://harvardfilmarchive.org/calendar/woman-of-tokyo-2023-07/1)
**The modern girl on screen.** Scholars have read the film within early-1930s debates about modern femininity. One conference analysis contrasts Ozu's handling with Naruse Mikio's *Street Without End* (1934): where Naruse stages urban spectacle at the level of the scene, Ozu manages visibility at the level of narration, dividing the heroine's respectable daytime office work from her concealed nocturnal labor, so that when concealment fails, visibility becomes moral surveillance routed through the family's economy of honor and shame.[13](https://nomadit.co.uk/conference/eajs2026/paper/96831)
## Later history
The film survives and circulates in restoration: a digitally remastered silent edition was issued on Japanese home video in 2013 paired with Ozu's short *I Flunked, But...* (1929), and a new sound edition with voice performances by Jun Fubuki and Akira Sano has been broadcast by WOWOW.[14](https://ci.nii.ac.jp/ncid/BB15243492) • [15](https://www.wowow.co.jp/detail/193295) In October 2023, Japanese media reported a remake of the film starring Shizuka Ishibashi, with Sara Minami and Daichi Kaneko also cast.[16](https://natalie.mu/eiga/film/802540)
## References
1. [東京の女, National Film Archive of Japan film collection database](https://nfad.nfaj.go.jp/det.php?data_id=1291&mode=1)
2. [東京の女, Shochiku film database](https://www.shochiku.co.jp/cinema/database/01496/)
3. [Ozu in NYC and LA, The Criterion Collection](https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/6676-ozu-in-nyc-and-la)
4. [Tôkyô no onna (1933), Silent Era Progressive Silent Film List](https://3rada.silentera.com/PSFL/data/T/TokyoNoOnna1933.html)
5. [Woman of Tokyo, The Criterion Channel](https://www.criterionchannel.com/films/XxhEiyHy/woman-of-tokyo)
6. [Woman of Tokyo, Harvard Film Archive (2023 screening notes)](https://harvardfilmarchive.org/calendar/woman-of-tokyo-2023-07/1)
7. [Woman of Tokyo, The New Yorker (Richard Brody)](https://www.newyorker.com/goings-on-about-town/movies/woman-of-tokyo)
8. [Woman of Tokyo (1933) plot summary, IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0024676/plotsummary/)
9. [Il Cinema Ritrovato 2012 catalog](https://festival.ilcinemaritrovato.it/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/06/Cinema-Ritrovato-2012-catalogo-pdf.pdf)
10. [Watch Woman of Tokyo online, BFI Player](https://player.bfi.org.uk/subscription/film/watch-woman-of-tokyo-1933-online)
11. [東京の女, Shochiku Cinema Plus](https://cinemaplus.shochiku.co.jp/titles/detail/12/)
12. [Ozu Yasujirô: the master of time, Sight and Sound (BFI)](https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/ozu-yasujiro-master-time)
13. [Moga as a regime of visibility: Naruse, Ozu, and the ethics of seeing in early 1930s Japanese cinema, EAJS 2026 conference paper](https://nomadit.co.uk/conference/eajs2026/paper/96831)
14. [大学は出たけれど ; 東京の女, CiNii Books](https://ci.nii.ac.jp/ncid/BB15243492)
15. [東京の女［新音声版］, WOWOW Online](https://www.wowow.co.jp/detail/193295)
16. [東京の女, 映画ナタリー](https://natalie.mu/eiga/film/802540)
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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 › Early and silent cinema › Silent feature films › Released 1927 to 2012*
*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
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License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license