Would I like it?

I admired and respected Tokyo Story but didn't love it. I adored Ugestu; it went right into my top 25 films of all time.

The first interview in the supplements points out that Ozu never moves the camera while Mizoguchi almost never leaves it still. Hearing that, a bomb of understanding went off in my head. I have unusual visual processing (terrible peripheral vision, can look right at things and not see them) and makes sense to me that I have trouble connecting emotionally to movies where the camera is still (maybe because I don't stay still!) and really connect well to ones where the camera is always moving. I had a lot of trouble with the Romanian film 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days, and that film kept the camera as still as possible.

In any case, the short answer is that because the visual approaches of the two directors are at opposite extremes, you have to try them both. I doubt I'm the only person who has a hard-wired preference for the amount of camera movement; in fact, I wouldn't be surprised if some such preference were universal.

Prepare your minds for a new scale of physical, scientific values, gentlemen.

taste and its relativity is a funny thing. for the sake of comparison, here are my own takes on some of these things

i love roger ebert and agree with him 99% of the time and his Great Movies are wonderful. i love old movies, i find the notion of "foreign" a bit silly and where something came from i don't pay too much attention to unless it's for something more specific.

the first time i saw the 400 blows it left me intrigued although i didn't get much more out of it than a general feeling~ and watching it again maybe a year or two later it instantly became one of those highest of favorites. the same thing happened with ugetsu. my second full viewing of both of these i'm talkin' completely blown away and in awe. it's like the first time i saw the seventh seal. films like this are why i started Seeking in the first place.

i have tried to watch tokyo story two times and only made it halfway through both times. bad timing because of either tiredness or mental health. the asme thing happened with ugetsu - i said funny, right? and i have seen and enjoyed other ozu films.

i don't reckon we'll ever find out what the TC thought of this film if they ever even watched it but questions like these are always around. you never know. there are worse films you could take the chance on.

I know this thread's ancient but I'll give it a shot. Depending on what other old Japanese movies you've seen, you might like it. I haven't seen Tokyo Story but the guy who made it has a signature style that I find very distinct with the few movies of his I have seen. Those would be The Story of Floating Weeds and The Equinox Flower. They were okay, particularly the former for being a silent movie, but I didn't find them as engaging on a subject level as some of the films I've seen by the guy who did Ugetsu. The guy who did Ugetsu also did The Life of Oharu and Sansho the Bailiff, which I found more interesting plot and character wise.

So I think if you like either of those or if you liked other films that remind me personally of Ugetsu such as Kuroneko, Kwaidan or Onibaba than you will definitely like Ugetsu. Doubly-so if you liked Kuroneko, Onibaba or Kwaida because they're all ghost stories. Kwaidan was done by Masaki Kobayashi while Kuroneko and Onibaba were done by Kaneto Shindo, who I think has a similar style to the guy who did Ugetsu. So if you like anything really by Kaneto Shindo then you might like Ugetsu, or anything done by the guy who did Ugetsu.