Ozu to Asia via Hasumi

Considering Ozu Yasujiro in Asia involves asking the role of discursive definitions of “Ozu” in the establishment of a transnational Ozu. This will be done with regard to Hasumi Shigehiko, whose Director Ozu Yasujiro (1983) is arguably the most influential book on Ozu in Japan. The chapter considers how Hasumi has helped create a transnational “Ozu” within Japan, in part by promoting another director, Hou Hsiao-hsien. The chapter sketches a triangulation in which a Taiwanese director becomes prominent in Japan via a critic looking at him through Ozu. It then explores Hasumi’s potential objections to this project. Not only has he disagreed with terming Hou “Ozuesque,” but his Ozu book begins with an argument against the very concept of “Ozuesque.” The relationships between Ozu and Hou that Hasumi enables are ultimately shaped by the theoretical and discursive context of imagining a border-crossing Ozu in 1980s and 1990s Japan.