Equinox Flower Unveils Yasujiro Ozu’s Vibrant Vision in 1950s Japan

Honoring Shin Saburi and Kinuyo Tanaka in Ozu’s First Color Film

How many of you have watched films by Yasujirō Ozu (小津安二郎, 1903-1963)? While his masterpiece, Tokyo Story (東京物語, 1953), is internationally acclaimed and widely recognized, today I’d like to recommend his 1958 film Equinox Flower (彼岸花, Higanbana). I’ll briefly touch on the background of Japanese color films from the 1950s while exploring what makes this particular film extraordinary from an unconventional perspective.

Equinox Flower is known as Ozu’s first color film, an important work intertwining his aesthetic preferences and the demands of the times. Ozu, who was notoriously cautious about adopting new technologies—such as transitioning from silent to sound films—primarily continued producing films at Shochiku (松竹). However, this particular work was produced by a different studio, Daiei (大映), where casting the then-major star actress Fujiko Yamamoto became a critical factor. At that time, Daiei set a condition: “If you want Fujiko Yamamoto, it has to be in color,” which pushed Ozu toward his first color film. But why did Daiei impose such a condition?

Fujiko Yamamoto, unanimously chosen as the winner of the first Miss Japan pageant in post-war 1950, became emblematic of the new Japanese identity emerging from the aftermath of defeat. Although Yamamoto herself initially had no intention of becoming an actress, a fierce recruitment battle among movie studios ended with her surprising entry into Daiei in 1953. Her debut was the monochrome film Hana no Kōdōkan (花の講堂館, 1953), but Daiei, eager to establish her as the symbol of post-war Japanese femininity, swiftly embarked on intensive research into color filmmaking, aiming to redefine the image of actresses previously established in black-and-white cinema, ultimately nurturing Yamamoto as a central figure in their new color film strategy.