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Tokyo Story

Play trailer 4:15 Poster for Tokyo Story 1953 2h 14m Drama Play Trailer Watchlist
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100% Tomatometer 52 Reviews 93% Popcornmeter 10,000+ Ratings
The elderly Shukishi (Chishu Ryu) and his wife, Tomi (Chieko Higashiyama), take the long journey from their small seaside village to visit their adult children in Tokyo. Their elder son, Koichi (Sô Yamamura), a doctor, and their daughter, Shige (Haruko Sugimura), a hairdresser, don't have much time to spend with their aged parents, and so it falls to Noriko (Setsuko Hara), the widow of their younger son who was killed in the war, to keep her in-laws company.
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Tokyo Story

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Critics Consensus

Tokyo Story is a Yasujiro Ozu masterpiece whose rewarding complexity has lost none of its power more than half a century on.

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Critics Reviews

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Penelope Gilliatt The New Yorker 01/22/2024
Ozu is obsessed with film's possibility of reporting the poetic truth of the actual. He is reality's artisan, and its connoisseur. Go to Full Review
Christian Blauvelt Slant Magazine 11/24/2010
4/4
In this exquisite merging of specific and universal, infinite and infinitesimal, Tokyo Story perhaps most clearly illuminates that Ozu is not the most Japanese of filmmakers, but the most human. Go to Full Review
Eric Hynes Village Voice 11/23/2010
Ozu's long shots, knee-high camera placement, and collapsed perspective -- as gorgeous and unsettling as a Cézanne -- gather power over the duration, but time itself is the master's most potent weapon. Go to Full Review
Grant Watson Fiction Machine Feb 21
10/10
It is a gentle work, filled with warmth and nicely observed human behaviours. Go to Full Review
Josh Larsen LarsenOnFilm 02/20/2024
3.5/4
...a work of considerable restraint. Go to Full Review
Sean Axmaker Stream on Demand 12/17/2022
... a resolutely modern portrait of post-war Japan, where western fashion defines the business culture and traditional dress is reserved for home, and careers and success increasingly dominate the lives of the rising generation. Go to Full Review
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Audience Reviews

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Steve L. @Stevio Nov 26 A favorite by a favorite director. No flash, no effects—just beautiful, poignant storytelling. See more Ken H Jul 25 A classic masterpiece of Japanese cinema. Two lines of dialog at the end of the film summed it up nicely for me: "Life is disappointing, isn't it?" "Yes, it is". Poignant realism. See more Virgo V Jul 25 Tokyo Story (Tōkyō Monogatari) is a 1953 Japanese drama film directed and written by Yasujirō Ozu. It stars Chishū Ryū, Chieko Higashiyama, Setsuko Hara, Kyōko Kagawa, Haruko Sugimura, So Yamamura, Kuniko Miyake, Shirō Ōsaka, Eijirō Tōno, Nobuo Nakamura, Hisao Toake and Toru Abe. It was produced by Takeshi Yamamoto. It was distributed and produced by Shochiku Company, Limited. Upon release, it did not immediately gain international recognition and was considered "too Japanese" to be marketable by Japanese film exporters. It was screened in 1957 in London, where it won the inaugural Sutherland Trophy the following year and received praise from U.S. film critics after a 1972 screening in New York City. The following year Haruko Sugimura won the Mainichi Film Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role as the eldest daughter Shige. German director Doris Dörrie drew inspiration from Tokyo Story for her 2008 film Cherry Blossoms, which follows a similar storyline. In 2013, Yōji Yamada remade the film as Tōkyō Kazoku. Vision wrote: “they must travel a distance from the country to the city. Chishū Ryū and Chieko Higashiyama, an aging couple, travel to Tokyo to visit their grown children. A little dull and stretched out like most Japanese films and that’s why I wouldn’t even consider it as one of the greatest films of all time. This film does fairly well when it comes to the intricacies of life experiences, especially in old age. The film is a take on life in Tokyo during the period after the war when all has been sacrificed. The twilight years of an elderly couple with a medium-to-large family. A film about relationships, about time and how it affects human beings. A universal masterpiece. Three and a half fries for the cinematography, direction and screenplay.” See more Stephen C @bob25009 Jun 7 Success in 2 hours and 14 minutes!!!!!!!! In Japanese and English versions with English subtitles!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! See more Grant L Dec 10 Absolutely extraordinary. Very quiet but achingly real with what may be the single most bittersweet yet true line spoken at the end of any movie (won’t spoil it) and of course Setsuko Hara is radiant, personifying the deep and innate humanity and decency that post-war Japan so desperately needed to find within itself. See more Kevin L 11/29/2024 Yasujirō Ozu film about family dynamics and how our view of our parents change once we are grown with our own family and busy schedules. Visiting parents become almost like a burden we must find ways to entertain or occupy while we go on with our own time consuming routines. It isn't that our lives keep us too busy for our families. It's that we have arranged them to protect us from having to deal with big questions of love, work and death. Given the opportunity with family to share our hopes, concerns, joys and disappointments, we escape into truisms, small talk and distractions. 3.6 stars See more Read all reviews
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Movie Info

Synopsis The elderly Shukishi (Chishu Ryu) and his wife, Tomi (Chieko Higashiyama), take the long journey from their small seaside village to visit their adult children in Tokyo. Their elder son, Koichi (Sô Yamamura), a doctor, and their daughter, Shige (Haruko Sugimura), a hairdresser, don't have much time to spend with their aged parents, and so it falls to Noriko (Setsuko Hara), the widow of their younger son who was killed in the war, to keep her in-laws company.
Director
Yasujirô Ozu
Producer
Takeshi Yamamoto
Screenwriter
Kôgo Noda, Yasujirô Ozu
Distributor
New Yorker Films, DeA Planeta S.L., Criterion Collection, Shochiku Films Ltd.
Production Co
Shochiku Films
Genre
Drama
Original Language
Japanese
Release Date (Theaters)
Nov 3, 1953, Wide
Release Date (Streaming)
Feb 23, 2012
Runtime
2h 14m
Sound Mix
Mono
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