Twenty-Four Eyes

A deeply moving nostalgic tear-jerker. It's quite sentimental, and more than a little bit manipulative, but it's also incredibly effective. The ending had so many touching moments that I was reduced to a blubbering wreck. I eat up this kind of heartwarming, bittersweet stuff. And there's a graceful beauty to the whole thing. Except for two early scenes that involve a pack of small children bawling their heads off simultaneously (not only annoying, but unconvincing), I really enjoyed this film.

Very sentimental film about a school teacher's struggles during the hard times of war. Soft focus and fake next to Ozu, Ichikawa and others, but redeemed by Takamine's wonderful performance. She is marvelous.

Undoubtedly sentimental, but completely authentic in emotion resonance. A lovely film with a devastating final act universal in humanity. Grab the handkerchiefs (and I mean that in a good way!). Also, Hideko Takamine is a goddess.

c/f

I had such high hopes for this after the first half hour but then it degenerated into an incredibly sentimental, manipulative sob-fest. Beautifully shot but oh so tiresome. Loses all of its emotional impact when characters wallow in self pity over their hard lives (which aren't actually that bad) and cry literally every five minutes.

Twenty-Four Eyes has some superficial similarities to Zhang Yimou's Not One Less, but a much better point of reference has to be the Apu Trilogy, or Satyajit Ray in general. This is not a very original story, and the sentimentality of it all threatens to get out of hand at some points. Let me tell you: this film has a LOT of crying in it. There were times when I was thinking "enough already", but the highly touching final sequence brought it all together.

Many of these old Japanese low-key dramas are a chore to watch, but one that's this length is an especially on-point example. Kinoshita's workmanship and aesthetic stringency deserve praise, but he wants to do more heavy lifting with smiling, sobbing and singing than plausible, and underestimates both the more cerebral and visceral elements of human nature and of politics. The characters act almost as if they know they're in a film and need to put on their most innocent faces.

Too much crying, it gets repetitive.

A tear-jerker and--minor SPOILER--a surprisingly refreshing anti-war film. Unlike most anti-war films, which seek to depict the horrors of war, this film takes a "backdoor" approach, but looking at war via a loving teacher's perspective of her students that eventually go off to war. To the film's credit, the teacher--played by the effervescent Hideko Takamine--doesn't rebel a la Norma Rae or give grandiose speeches.