Floating Weeds

Floating Weeds follows a travelling kabuki troupe that arrives in a small coastal town in southern Japan. Its leader, Komajuro, has a private reason for the visit: a former lover lives there, and so does the son he fathered with her years ago, a young man who believes Komajuro is merely his uncle. Komajuro's current partner, the troupe's leading actress Sumiko, grows suspicious of his long absences and uncovers the truth. Jealous and determined to retaliate, she persuades a younger actress in the company to charm the son, setting off consequences none of them controls. The film is a remake of a silent picture Yasujirō Ozu had made in 1934 from his own story, with the screenplay credited to Kōgo Noda and Ozu, and Tadao Ikeda on the earlier version.

Ozu directed Floating Weeds as the fourteenth of the sixteen films attributed to him, arriving between Good Morning and Late Autumn. Ganjirō Nakamura II, a kabuki actor, plays Komajuro, with Machiko Kyō as Sumiko, Ayako Wakao as Kayo, Hiroshi Kawaguchi as Kiyoshi and Haruko Sugimura as Oyoshi; thirty-one cast members are credited. Shot in colour for Daiei Film and produced by Masaichi Nagata, it runs 115 minutes.

On IMDb the film holds 7.9 from around 9,700 votes, and on TMDB 7.5 from 207, while a critics' rating of 8.8 from 23 reviews places it well above the audience scores.