7:30
Yasujiro Shimazu was one of the first directors to specialize in the shomin-geki, a genre of films devoted to the life of the middle and lower-middle classes. A Brother and His Younger Sister concerns a company employee who is torn between conflicting loyalties when his sister becomes involved with the boss's nephew. John Gillett (British Film Institute) writes of Shimazu's influence, evident in this film, on other directors who would later concentrate on the shomin-geki: “Shimazu was Gosho's teacher and it is interesting to see how master and pupil's work merge together in this typcial drama of ‘ordinary people'.... It is also easy to see his influence on Ozu and Naruse, especially in the way small details of home life are integrated into a novelistic narrative. The story (is) full of sharp changes of mood and character....”