Tokyo Story is a 1953 Japanese drama film directed by Yasujirō Ozu and starring Chishū Ryū and Chieko Higashiyama. The film follows an aging couple's journey to visit their grown children in bustling postwar Tokyo and surveys the rich and complex world of family life with the director’s customary delicacy and incisive perspective on social mores. The film is widely regarded as Ozu's masterpiece and one of the greatest films in the history of cinema. It was voted the 3rd greatest film of all time in the 2012 edition of a poll of film directors by Sight and Sound magazine.
Themes in the film include the break-up and Westernization of the traditional Japanese family after World War II and the inevitability of children growing apart from their parents. It contrasts the urban life of the children in Tokyo with the rural life of their parents. The emotional resonances of this movie are extraordinary, and some shots are enough to give a sensitive film-goer the shivers.
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Plot
The film tells the story of an elderly couple, Shukishi and Tomi Hirayama, who live in the small coastal village of Onomichi, Japan with their youngest daughter, schoolteacher Kyoko Hirayama. The couple visits their children and grandchildren in the city but receives little attention.
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Cast
- Chishū Ryū as Shūkichi Hirayama
- Chieko Higashiyama as Tomi Hirayama
- Setsuko Hara as Noriko Hirayama
- Haruko Sugimura as Shige Kaneko
- Sō Yamamura as Koichi Hirayama
Other notable cast members include Toyo Takahashi, who played Rinka no saikun, and Nobuo Nakamura, who played Kurazo.
Director: Yasujirô Ozu
Writer: Kôgo Noda, Yasujirô Ozu
Box Office Gross: $50,714
Distributor: New Yorker Films, DeA Planeta S.L., Criterion Collection, Shochiku Films Ltd.
Genre: Drama
Release Date (Theaters): Nov 3, 1953
Release Date (Streaming): Feb 23, 2012