Ozu's "bad boys" strike again! Ohayo is an updated version of his 1932 comedy I Was Born But..., in which two delightfully atypical little boys rebel against their father's politics of submission. In the fifties' version, the subject of their pouting and parent-baiting is a much more tangible object of desire: television. In a middle class housing development outside of Tokyo, only one family owns a TV; naturally their home becomes the clubhouse for the neighborhood boys who like to watch the wrestling matches. But the electronic emission in their living room makes the family suspect in the eyes of the rest of the community (they also "loll around the house in Western-style nightgowns" one mother assures the others). Minoru and Isamu, the Hayashi brothers, are tired of having to go to their neighbors' to watch television; they demand one of their own. And another thing, the boys wonder, why must they always greet people with "good morning" (ohayo) and ask "how are you?" when they obviously don't care what the answer is? Told to be quiet, they go on a silence strike, which the hapless neighbors interpret as a further snub. Ohayo is quite literally a comedy of manners-a quiet duel between the ceremonial politesse that greases the wheels of daily life (and parental authority), and the robust rituals of boyhood. The medium between them is television-the modern icon which knows no authority but its own.