An Inn at Osaka (1954) (2025)

Popular reviews

• Review by Sin ✊🏿 ★★★★ 14

  Shoshimin-eiga ("lower middle class film" or "common people drama”) is one of my personal fave film genres, hence why I adore Mikio Naruse so much, as he's the preeminent maestro of the genre, imo. Keisuke Kinoshita and Ozu were also unquestionably great filmmakers who frequented this sandbox.

  It's unfortunate that writer-director Heinosuke Gosho–director of Japan's first sound film–doesn't get as much shine as he deserves, as he primarily worked in the genre and was no slouch. For those who appreciate Ozu and Naruse's contributions to the genre, Gosho’s An Inn at Osaka will surely feel like familiar homecooking.

  This film is essentially about everyday folks struggling to survive while also grappling with unhappiness, both issues ultimately part and parcel of…

• Review by SY ★★★★★ 1

  This movie deserves to be ranked alongside Ozu's Tokyo Story, Mizoguchi's Sansho the Bailiff, Kurosawa's Seven Samurai, Naruse's Floating Clouds, etc. In other words, the best of the best of post-war Japanese cinema. Gosho is a true master. It tells the story of an insurance company executive from Tokyo, who is demoted to the Osaka office. He takes a room at a small inn and tries to rebuild his life. The film is almost novelistic in its richness and scope, in its events and characters, all of whom thus transcend their type. A subtly powerful and sad portrait-critique of postwar Japan and its ruthless march toward modernity.

• Review by Lencho of the Apes ★★★★

  Japan-specific and deeply conservative, almost a thesis film about the effectiveness of public shame as a tool for building social cohesion, the postwar breakdown of entrenched Japanese traditions and the quagmire of interlocking turpitudes everyone gets caught up in the absence of those traditions... but it's expressed with a Renoirian 'everyone has their reasons' deliicacy and humanism.

  Not to be missed, for anyone attuned to the Ozu/Mizoguchi/Naruse vibe.

• Review by Filipe Furtado ★★★★

  A hard bitter look at post war Japan through the difficulties of a group of mostly women around a cheap inn. Veteran Gosho does a great job of imbuing everyone of characters drama of compassionate interest while also telling it from the point of view of demoted middle class man who is something of a well intended social tourist so the film is often predicted in discussing its own distance from its characters and the possible offer to them and about them.

• Review by Mathew ★★★★★ 5

  "Let's have the dignity... to laugh at our unhappiness. We must keep that state of mind to live."

  Another Underrated Masterpiece from Japan. I will say this again and again, there is no film industry that had produced films that showcased the life or philosophy of life so simply but eloquently. Japanese cinema has made the most deeply humanistic films ever in the history of cinema for me (especially the post war life). This is such a humanistic exploration of post-war Japan’s social struggles. Known for his subtle storytelling and deep empathy for ordinary people, Gosho crafts a narrative that weaves together themes of poverty, resilience, and the quiet dignity of everyday life.
  Gosho’s direction shines with its understated realism.…

• Review by VonBergundy ★★★ 1

  Maybe I just wasn't in the right mood, but this one didn't do too much for me. I found the characters to be too blank to relate to and the story too thin for the two hour runtime. Based off of this film, I will unfairly say that it's understandable why Ozu, Mizoguchi, and Naruse are the bigger names when it comes to 50's Shomin-geki films. I do like the way the economic themes are handled; it's probably what keeps the film from being totally forgettable for me. 🤷‍♀️

  Japanuary - 15/31
  Film School Dropouts Challenge - Week 2 - Auteur: Heinosuke Gosho

• Review by Oscar Lau ★★★★½

  Deeply sad and melancholic of the disappointment in the post-war Japan, Osaka is the portal for the macroscopic view of the social structure where unemployment and poverty are a norm among the lower class, while the inn is the site for microscopic scrutiny on human relationship and indifference.
  IMO the female characters are the main focus of the film, no matter the geisha or the maid or the inn owner, they reminisced Naruse's tragic, resilient women (particularly Flowing); whereas the male side characters are either ineffectual and dependent or greedy and unsympathetic. We view the disillusioned Japan through the eyes of the central protagonist Mita (Sano Shuji), witnessing his realisation of disappointment and the failure of idealism. But the film never lost its light-heartedness and still retained a glimpse of hope even at the worst possible moment, not by a miracle resolution but by the understanding that one is never alone in this dispiriting world.

• Review by Omar ★★★★½

  من اكثر الافلام اللي ارتبطت بها شخصياً وانا اتابعها، كثير من الثيمز و المبادئ اللي شفتها بالفيلم تمر علينا يومياً، فيلم يخليك تسأل نفسك هل انت شخص طيب او لا، هل قراراتك اللي تتخذها هي الصح؟ هل مبادئك صح ؟ الحياة صعبة عالجميع بس فالنهاية لازم نعيش، بس السؤال هو كيف.

• Review by trolleyfreak ★★★★½ 2

  O Gosh(o), this was good!

  A cross-section of guests and staff are gathered together in a run-down establishment and we, the audience, capture glimpses of their lives.

  The tender, cruel, comic and pitiful incidents of their day-to-day existences are carefully balanced by a director who orchestrates all of these diverse elements to perfection.

  All in all, another very affecting film from a peerless year in Japanese cinema..

• Review by V. Lepistö ★★★★½

  "Let's have the dignity to laugh at our own unhappiness."

  It feels as if this film travels through each corner of post-war Japan to return to human's unhappy hearts that a song can fill for a little while until it's once again time to go. In these dark times, the courage to live is found in togetherness; flawed human beings slowly learning to understand each other even if their meets cannot meet.

• Review by Italiano Man 🇮🇹 ★★★★½

  نوديتي في فيلم ياباني في الخمسينيات يا عيب الشوم وانا كنت احسبكم محترمين

  "المال هو كل شيء!
  ماذا حدث للإنسانية؟"

  البشر ليسوا وحوش هي فقط الحالة جعلتهم هكذا، اذا كانت حالتهم سيئة يحاولون تغيرها لحالة ممتاز فيصبحون وحوش في فترة التغير و اذا كانت حالتهم ممتازة يحاولون جعلها حالة ثابتة فيصبحون وحوش في فترة الثبات
  في النهاية كل البشر وحوش مهما كانت حالتهم.

  فيلم مختلف عن افلام وقته من افلام اوزو و ناروسي و ميزوغوشي فيه وعي اكثر و تطور

• Review by 𝐅𝐥𝐚𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐨 ★★★★

  C'est un excellent film de Heinosuke Gosho sur l'épanouissement de la compassion. Il n'y a pas de sens de l'arc narratif conventionnel, dans lequel les choses se passent bien. Tout le monde est pire à la fin qu'au début. Pourtant, ce n'est pas une tragédie, car il y a des choses qui sont plus importantes que le succès matériel. En effet, c'est cette prise de conscience et son action, même sans succès, qui fait de ce film une œuvre d’état d’esprit humain. Tout le monde sera peut-être dans une situation pire matériellement à la fin, mais Sano et les amis qu'il s'est fait à Osaka sont de meilleures personnes, plus honnêtes, plus ouvertes, plus gentilles et déterminées à être meilleures.