Tôkyô monogatari (1953)

Director:

Yasujiro Ozu

Writers:

Kôgo Noda (writer)
Yasujiro Ozu (writer)

Release Date:

13 March 1972 (USA)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

An old couple visit their children and grandchildren in the city; but the children have little time for them.

Plot Keywords:

Mahjong | City Name In Title | Cult Director | Place Name In Title | Train Ride

Awards:

2 wins

Cast

Chishu Ryu	...	Shukishi Hirayama
Chieko Higashiyama	...	Tomi Hirayama
Setsuko Hara	...	Noriko Hirayama
Haruko Sugimura	...	Shige Kaneko
Sô Yamamura	...	Koichi Hirayama
Kuniko Miyake	...	Fumiko Hirayama - his wife
Kyôko Kagawa	...	Kyoko Hirayama
Eijirô Tono	...	Sanpei Numata
Nobuo Nakamura	...	Kurazo Kaneko
Shirô Osaka	...	Keiso Hirayama
Hisao Toake	...	Osamu Hattori
Teruko Nagaoka	...	Yone Hattori
Mutsuko Sakura	...	Patron of the Oden Restaurant
Toyoko Takahashi	...	Shukichi Hirayama's Neighbor
Toru Abe	...	Train employee

Also Known As:

Tokyo Story (USA)

Runtime:

136 min

Country:

Japan

Language:

Japanese

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Sweden:Btl | Hong Kong:I | Brazil:18 | Portugal:M/12 | Finland:S | UK:U | Spain:T | Singapore:PG

Filming Locations:

Atami, Shizuoka, Japan

Company:

Shochiku Kinema Kenkyû-jo

Trivia:

Voted #7 in Total Film's 100 Greatest Movies Of All Time list (November 2005).

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: The "dead" mother is visibly breathing.

Quotes:

Kyoko: Isn't life disappointing?
Noriko: [smiles] Yes, it is.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Ikite wa mita keredo - Ozu Yasujirô den (1983)

Too subtle and yet too obvious

This film is commonly called one of the masterpieces of international film. Indeed, a well-known "intro to film" textbook uses it as a case study in notable film-making. But, as more than one reviewer so far has pointed out, 'Tokyo Story' is slow, obscure, and sometimes seemingly sterile. Understanding how a great classic could be seemingly soulless requires some study - of Japanese culture, as others have pointed out, of film technique, and of ourselves. Fortunately, that understanding more than fully repays itself, as is true of any great piece of art.

I should begin by warning the first time viewer that the film is not in any familiar style. Other reviewers have mentioned the camera, the angles, the acting, the elision - I hardly need dwell on these. Those used to Hollywood films of almost any era will find 'Tokyo Story' odd and unsettling, just because the style is so different. And of course the culture is radically different. In this forum one can hardly even begin to discuss the way that Japanese fathers discuss their children amongst themselves, or the marriage culture of 1950s Japan. But I think the film is great even if one has no understanding of continuity editing, or post-war Japan, or a dozen other obscure topics. This is, after all, the central feature of great art: Even those of us who do not fully understand still realize, in some unspeakable way, that we are in the presence of something great.

The most common accusations leveled against this film, oddly, assert alternatively that it is a cold, soulless exercise in technique or, on the other hand, that it is a soap opera, with no real substance. I think neither of those is true. There can be no question that it is easily seen as cold. Nothing really happens, by modern standards. It is merely a family that comes and goes and lives and dies. Of course, to those who accuse it of being a soap opera, that death is the foremost evidence of its manipulative guilt. But, for those who have seen it, recall the mother's stroke, or where Keizo is told to look one last time - would a soap opera elide such a supremely emotional scenes?

No, 'Tokyo Story' is neither cold nor manipulative. Rather, it slowly brings you into a family that, while perhaps totally unlike your own, is at its base just the same. Then it allows those things to happen that must someday happen to all of us - growing up, moving away, and that unspeakable, inescapable end. It is not easy; it is not obvious; but it is not obscure, either. After it all, I can only tell you this: If you have lived long enough to know how it feels to leave your parents and only realize far too late, as it seems we all do, the value of what you have left behind, then 'Tokyo Story' will reward you perfectly. And these things - we all do these very things, so 'Tokyo Story' is universal, is Art.