Days of Youth
1929 film by Yasujirō Ozu
Days of Youth (学生（がくせい）ロマンス 若（わか）き日（ひ）, Gakusei Romance: Wakaki hi) is a Japanese silent comedy film directed by Yasujirō Ozu. It is the oldest known surviving film by the director. The film tells of two friends from a university (played by Ichirō Yūki and Tatsuo Saitō) who vie for the attention of the same girl (Junko Matsui) during a skiing trip.
Cast
Ichirō Yūki as Bin Watanabe (a student)
Tatsuo Saitō as Shūichi Yamamoto (a student)
Junko Matsui as Chieko
Chōko Iida as Chieko's mother
Eiko Takamatsu as Landlady
Shōichi Kofujita as Shōji (her son)
Ichirō Ōkuni as Professor Anayama
Takeshi Sakamoto as Professor
Shin'ichi Himori as Hatamoto (a student)
Fusao Yamada as Kobayashi (a student)
Chishū Ryū as Student
Reception
The British Film Institute listed Days of Youth as the best Japanese film of 1929, describing it as "an outstandingly creative intersection of various styles and genres" which echoed "Ernst Lubitsch's sophisticated comedy and Harold Lloyd's ludic humour".
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Days of Youth” as 1929 film by Yasujirō Ozu. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the arts & letters register because the source frames it as 1929 film by Yasujirō Ozu. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 15, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q965249. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1929.
Rights, attribution and provenance may remain disputed even when a general reference summary presents a stable account. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.
Three-step research path
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- Expand the search: follow Days of Youth primary sources, Days of Youth archive and Days research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
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Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “Days of Youth” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.