I Was Born, But...
(1932)
★ 7.5 IMDb · 155 votes
Year: 1932
Runtime: 100 мин
Country: Japan
Director: 小津安二郎
Cast: 斎藤達雄, 青木富夫, 吉川満子, 菅原秀雄, 坂本武, Teruyo Hayami, 加藤清一, 小藤田正一, 西村青児, Zentaro Iijima
Plot
Brothers Keiji and Ryoichi move to a new neighborhood in the Tokyo suburbs after their father, an office clerk, is promoted. The boys join the local gang as lowly new kids and emerge as natural leaders after defeating a bully. While visiting the home of their father's boss, the brothers witness the ridicule their father endures to please his superior. Angry and embarrassed, the boys find their naive ideas about power being challenged.
The Yoshi family - husband and wife Kennesuke and Haha, a middle manager at an office and a housewife respectively, and their two adolescent sons Keiji and Ryoichi - have just moved from the inner city to the suburbs of Tokyo, into the same neighborhood where Kennesuke's boss, Iwasaki, and his family live. The boys get off to a rocky start in their new neighborhood as they end up being bullied by a group of similarly aged boys, led by slightly bigger Kamekichi. Keiji and Ryoichi even secretly play hooky from school, not wanting to have to confront the bullies. After befriending Kozou, the older delivery boy at the local store who ends up being their protector of sorts, Keiji and Ryoichi are able to stand up to their tormentors to become the ones among the boys who call the shots. Their newfound pride takes a hit when they end up being at the same social gathering as their father and his coworkers at Iwasaki's house, and see that their father is a proverbial apple-polisher toward Iwasaki and not the important man they previously believed him to be. Kennesuke knows how his behavior looks to his sons, but justifies it to himself by probably being further ahead in life than they would be otherwise. The Yoshis will have to reconcile these two issues for harmony to return within their family.