Ozu's mid-1930s – after the culmination of the shōshimin film genre with the critical success of Tokyo Chorus and I Was Born But …, and before his first talkie film, Hitori musuko/The Only Son (1936) – can be described as following two different paths. One deals with female-oriented melodrama, such as Tōkyō no onna/ Woman of Tokyo (1933) and Hahao kowazuya/A Mother Should Be Loved (1934). The other is a series of films dealing with the lives of lower-class people, which is called the ‘Kihachi series’ after the name of the reappearing male protagonist (consistently performed by the same actor, Sakamoto Takeshi). Ozu made four Kihachi films in this period – Passing Fancy (1933), Ukigusa monogatari/A Story of Floating Weeds (1934), Hakoiri musume/An Innocent Maid (1935, the film does not exist today), and Tōkyō no yado/An Inn in Tokyo (1935), the latter two of which may overlap with the female-oriented melodrama genre as well. None of these films has received as much critical interest as his shōshimin films did; lacking the latter's sophisticated social commentary, the former were mostly underrated either as tearjerkers or carefree comedies. For instance, the Japanese critic Iwasaki Akira remembers when he first saw Passing Fancy and A Story of Floating Weeds; ‘Many of us were deeply disappointed to find that Ozu had abandoned serious social themes’. As will be discussed, Ozu himself did not regard the Kihachi series as serious work even though it suggested a very new approach in his filmmaking career.

Such a low valuation is also attributable to the fact that these films articulate relatively conservative ideas and values that can easily appeal to mass audiences. Warm familial relationships based on mutual understanding – the typical Ozu theme – replaced the salaryman patriarch's trouble and conflict with his family in shōshimin film. In terms of form and style, the old and stable atmosphere can be understood as Ozu's adoption of shinpa-esque elements as represented by the appearance of a suffering mother figure.