Yasujiro Ozu famously called himself a “tofu maker,” turning out movie after thematically and stylistically similar movie the way makers of the humble soybean-based staple turn out block after indistinguishable block. Of course, the director of “Late Spring” (1949) and “Tokyo Story” (1953) was an artist of the first rank, but the protagonist in Mitsuhiro Mihara’s heartwarming drama “Takano Tofu” is no drudge mass-producing tofu for supermarket shelves.
