Brother and his sister

...While actively imitating American slapstick comedies such as those by Mack Sennett, Chaplin, and Lloyd, in 1924, at the Kamata Film Studios, which had been rebuilt after the Great Kanto Earthquake, under the direction of the new director Kido Shiro, he began making films with "cheerful content, filled with pathos and humor in personal notes-like stories about everyday life." After making ``The Village Teacher'' (1925), which became one of the original home dramas, ``Sunday'' (1924), a comedy about office workers, and ``Bonus'' (1928), he is said to have perfected the petite bourgeois film with ``My Neighbor Yae-chan'' (1934), an early talkie. Along with Ozu Yasujiro's Tokyo Chorus (1931) and Born to Kill (1932), Gosho Heinosuke's All Living Things (1934) and Life's Burden (1935), and Uchida Tomu's Infinite Progress (1937), it is considered a masterpiece that stands at the pinnacle of ordinary bourgeois films, and Shimazu's last work, Brother and His Sister (1939), was his masterpiece, before he moved from Shochiku (Ofuna Studio) to Toho. After that, he lost his "Shimazu-like liveliness" and there were not many films worth seeing, and he died of stomach cancer in 1945 at the age of 49.

*Some of the terminology that refers to "The Brother and His Sister" is listed below.

Source | Heibonsha World Encyclopedia 2nd Edition | Information

…マック･セネット，チャップリン，ロイドなどアメリカのスラプスティック喜劇を積極的に模倣しながら，やがて1924年，関東大震災後の復興蒲田撮影所で，新所長城戸四郎の下に，〈日常生活の身辺雑記風の話の中にペーソスやユーモアをたたえた明るい内容〉の映画をつくり，ホームドラマの原典の一つになった《村の先生》(1925)，サラリーマン喜劇《日曜日》(1924)，《ボーナス》(1928)等々を経て，トーキー初期の《隣の八重ちゃん》(1934)で小市民映画の完成をみたとされる。小津安二郎監督《東京の合唱》(1931)，《生れてはみたけれど》(1932)，五所平之助監督《生きとし生けるもの》(1934)，《人生のお荷物》(1935)，内田吐夢監督《限りなき前進》(1937)等々とともに小市民映画の頂点に立つ代表作とみなされ，島津の代表作ともいえる《兄とその妹》(1939)を最後に松竹(大船撮影所)から東宝に移った。その後は〈島津らしい闊達（かつたつ）さ〉を失ってさほど見るべき作品もなく，45年，胃癌のため49歳で死去した。…

※「《兄とその妹》」について言及している用語解説の一部を掲載しています。

出典｜株式会社平凡社世界大百科事典 第２版について | 情報