Tokyo-born Yasujiro Ozu was a movie buff from childhood, often playing hooky from school in order to see Hollywood movies in his local theater. In 1923 he landed a job as a camera assistant at Shochiku Studios in Tokyo. Three years later he was made an assistant director and directed his first film the next year, Zange no yaiba (1927). Ozu made 35 silent films, and a trilogy of youth comedies with serious overtones he turned out in the late 1920s and early 1930s placed him in the front ranks of Japanese directors. He made his first sound film in 1936, Hitori musuko (1936), but was drafted into the Japanese Army the next year, being posted to China for two years and then to Singapore when World War II started. Shortly before the war ended he was captured by British forces and spent six months in a POW facility. At war's end he went back to Shochiku, and his experiences during the war resulted in his making more serious, thoughtful films at a much slower pace than he had previously. His most famous film, Tôkyô monogatari (1953), is generally considered by critics and film buffs alike to be his "masterpiece" and is regarded by many as not only one of Ozu's best films but one of the best films ever made. He also turned out such classics of Japanese film as Ochazuke no aji (1952), Ukigusa (1959) and Sanma no aji (1962). Ozu, who never married and lived with his mother all his life, died of cancer in 1963, two years after she passed away.

Retrospective at the 53rd Berlin International Film Festival. [2003]Retrospective in 2003 at the 27th São Paulo International Film FestivalBiography in John Wakeman, editor, "World Film Directors, Volume One, 1890-1945," pp. 850-858. New York: The H.W. Wilson Company, 1987.Thirty-four-film Retrospective during 2005 at Northwest Film Forum in Seattle.Thought of as the world's greatest director by many film critics and theorists alike.It's often thought that he placed the camera at the eye level of a person kneeling on a Tatami mat. Actually, it's often lower than that, only one or two feet off the ground.His grave bears no name, just the character 'mu' ("nothingness").Remained single and childless all of his life and lived alone with his mother, who died less than two years before his own death.