I Was Born, But... is a comedy, but a "serious" one. A typical wage earner moves to the suburbs with his typical wife and two delightfully atypical sons, aged eight and ten. The boys pass quickly through the rites of neighborhood initiation, but are confronted with their father's politics of submission when asked to kowtow to the boss's prissy son. The recognition of the falseness of adult behavior, which they at first innocently reflect, then rebel against, and finally accept, is another sort of initiation for the boys-their loss of innocence. Though the film is silent, one can almost hear the characters' voices, particularly that of nine-year-old Tokkankozo, whose ingenious antics steal the show. Considered the first of Ozu's great films, this is an early classic of the shomin-geki genre-films about middle class manners and mores.