Early Summer · reception & legacy

1951 · Yasujirō Ozu

How Early Summer has been received, argued over, and remembered.

The arc

A hit at home — Japanese critics voted it the best film of 1951 in the Kinema Junpo poll — but like most Ozu it barely reached the West until his rediscovery decades later; now it's cherished as the middle panel of the Noriko trilogy, and a vocal contingent calls it his finest.

What's debated

The evergreen cinephile debate: is this quietly the best of the Noriko trilogy — better, whisper it, than Tokyo Story — or forever the underrated middle child?

Its footprint

Setsuko Hara's radiant smile became shorthand for an entire era of Japanese cinema, and the film's closing image of the barley field is one of the most rhapsodised final shots in the Ozu canon.

Where it stands

Firmly canonical — a Criterion-stamped, 'you must complete the Noriko trilogy' staple that Letterboxd Ozu devotees love to champion over its more famous siblings.

★ Did you know? Setsuko Hara plays a woman named Noriko here, in Late Spring, and in Tokyo Story — three different, unrelated characters — which is why fans call them the 'Noriko trilogy' even though Ozu never conceived them as one.