Tokyo Story - Criterion Collection

Starring:Chishu Ryu, Chieko Higashiyama, Setsuko Hara, Haruko Sugimura, SÃ´ Yamamura, Kuniko Miyake, KyÃ´ko Kagawa, EijirÃ´ Tono, Nobuo Nakamura, ShirÃ´ Osaka, Hisao Toake, Teruko Nagaoka, Mutsuko Sakura, Toyoko Takahashi, Toru Abe, Sachiko Mitani, Zen Murase, Mitsuhiro Mori, Junko Anan, Ryoko Mizuki
Director: Yasujiro Ozu, Kazuo Inoue
Studio: Criterion
Product Type: DVD

Description

Yasujiro Ozu's Tokyo Story (Tokyo Monogatari) follows an aging couple, Tomi and Sukichi, on their journey from their rural village to visit their two married children in bustling, post-war Tokyo. Their reception, however, is disappointing: too busy to entertain them, their children send them off to a health spa. After Tomi falls ill, she and Sukichi return home, while the children, grief-stricken, hasten to be with her. From a simple tale unfolds one of the greatest of all Japanese films. Starring Ozu regulars Chishu Ryu and Setsuko Hara, the film reprises one of the director's favorite themes—that of generational conflict—in a way that is quintessentially Japanese and yet so universal in its appeal that it continues to resonate as one of cinema's greatest masterpieces.

Customer Reviews:

Tokyo Story.......2007-06-27

One of the enduring classics by celebrated master Ozu, this melancholic dissection of family dynamics in postwar Japan may sound simplistic, but "Story" packs an emotional punch as it observes the erosion of traditional values in modern lifeways. Among a uniformly strong cast, Higashiyama and Ryu give low-key, heartbreaking performances as the jilted parents--who seem bewildered as much by the clamor of the city as by their children's inhospitable behavior. "Story" may be understated, but Ozu's quiet, immobile visual style and deft direction reflect the nuances of everyday existence like no one else.

Universal appeal of Tokyo Story.......2007-04-10

As with every great work, the film has its own unique perfection in style, rhythm, details, and artist's vision - but "Tokyo Story" is very universal in its appeal - it is for every parent, every son or daughter - for everyone. It was made 50 years ago in Japan, about people who lived far away, but it is also about all of us, our families, our problems, our guilt and our search for love and meaning.

Ozu's film does not require one to be a movie buff or to try to solve complex symbolism to appreciate and love it. It brings smiles because it is a comedy (for at least the first 2/3) and sadness with a high drama of the last 1/3 of the film.

Yasujiro Ozu's quiet and deceptively simple film tells a story of an elderly couple who travel to Tokyo to see their grown up children and their families - son, daughter and daughter-in-law who is a widow of their middle son that was killed during the World War II. Their children love them, of course but they are too busy with their own lives and jobs to spend much time with them. Their young grandchildren don't know them and not too eager to try to know their grandparents better. Only the widowed daughter-in-law is the one who is really happy with their arrival and tries to make their visit pleasurable. After parents return home, children receive a telegram with the sad news that the mother became critically ill. Now it is their turn to make a journey.

Ozu does not judge anybody, but beneath the quiet politeness, smiles, and soft voices there is a sad, inevitable, and powerful alienation of generations in the modern world of big cities. The simple family melodrama has been told with intensity, humanity, and honesty of character.

P.S. The first thing I wanted to do after I finished watching this film was to pick up the phone and call my mom. Just to hear her voice.

You shall love your parents.......2007-03-20

2 hours and 15 minutes long. Another Ozu masterpiece. Of the 3 films I've seen so far this is the saddest one; and it feels like we've reached the end of a saga. Death closes this sequence of films: 'Late Spring', 'Early Summer' and this one; and writes a sad epitaph to life: life is sad and there's nothing we can do about it.

I didn't like it as much as the other two Ozu films mentioned, not because it's worse, but because it's pessimistic and leaves no room for hope (which could be very accurate, however). The best advice we are left is resignation. Children will become parents, and then grandparents; and probably they will be treated the same way they treated their own parents and grandparents before.

But do children really have to grow cold to their parents as they become older, or is there something we can do about it? The youngest daughter asks this to Setsuko Hara (daughter-in-law). She is pessimistic, times change everybody, and they will change too. But she herself is the living example that this is not so. She is not even a blood relative, however, she did more for the old couple than any relative. Setsuko Hara is the most positive and conservative character in Ozu's films. Times may change people's values and weaken human institutions, like the most basic one, families, but she will remain steadfast to those values inherited by generations down to the present. I would have preferred to see Setsuko in a happier mood, like in the other two films mentioned. I couldn't handle so much sadness.

Substantial film but substantially overrated........2007-02-24

Several years ago "Tokyo Story" topped the list of 1000 Greatest Films as ranked by Halliwell's. It certainly belongs on the list, but #1? Apparently, the stationary floor-level camera, doorway and hallway framings, underplayed acting of the old couple, snail's-pace plot movement, violation of the 180 degree sightline have all contributed to the cult-like following the film has attracted.

It's enjoyable, moving, and cinematically satisfying: compared to the constant stream of action, shock editing, and shrill noise of most present-day American movies, "Tokyo Story" is like a necklace composed of visual haikus, each shot worthy of being savored by the discerning reviewer. But the stillness, however poignant, doesn't hold enough "music" for me--that lyrical and rhapsodic dimension of film that plays not only in the soundtrack but is made visible by the lyrical movement of the camera as well. The most memorable films are also the most "melodramatic"--a balance of sight and sound, the visual and the aural, the spatial and the temporal. The greatest films not only expose loss but restore it through the fullness of music.

Among Japanese films, the one that comes closest to the melodramatic, or drama+music, standard is Kinoshita's "24-Eyes," a 1954 film that's as "operatic" as it is cinematic, permitting a richness of expression in time that compensates for the elegiac sadness that accumulates with the passage of the years from pre-war to post WWII Japan. But there's also a 1930s American film which, since first seeing it 1979, I've been unable to locate. Entitled "Make Way for Tomorrow," it's a movie with a storyline identical to that of "Tokyo Story." In fact, it's the film that inspired Ozu to make his Japanese version, not the first time the Japanese have demonstrated their good taste and undeniable invention in borrowing from another culture.

Beautiful, Profound And Moving Work Of Cinema: The Cycle Of Life.......2006-07-31

Yasujiro Ozu, known for his earlier works of cinema, "Late Spring" and "Early Summer" gave us a film which I consider his greatest masterpiece, "Tokyo Story." Aside from the notable cinematic expression of the camera work that Ozu was known for in his films; such as the low camera angles, what makes this masterpiece so profound to me is the simplicity of the film itself. And although his earlier aforementioned works also deal with simple themes, this film for me captures and encapsulates where the two previous films leave off: The impermanence of life. Many people I know have stated that this film is sterile and cold, and that it has no soul.

I tend to disagree. Yes, the film gives the viewer the simple life of a family. [A common theme in Ozu's films] However, unlike his earlier films, the impermance of life is given full force in this film. Here we see a family that must come to turns with what we must all inevitably face in our own lives: The death of a loved one. And Ozu does not do this in the typical American fashion, but instead focuses on the long drawn out lives of this family in a soap opera like narrative, just as he did in "Late Spring" and "Early Summer."

The film itself takes place in post-war Japan. And as with most of the films of Yasujiro Ozu, there are the usual Ozu cast of actors. We have the mother Tomi (Chieko Higashiyama) and father Shukishi (Chishu Ryu). Living in the rural countryside, they decide to visit their children who reside in Tokyo. However, the children are indifferent to their parents visiting them and decide to send them away to a spa. Another Ozu regular: the beautiful Noriko, (Setsuko Hara) portrays the widowed daughter-in-law of Tomi and Shukishi. And it is Noriko who treats the elder Hirayama's with more compassion and love than their own children. It is not that the children are intentionally spiteful to their parents, they just feel as if a great burden is being placed on them by their parents visit.

This film is a simple, yet great masterpiece, weaving a story of the usual day to day activities of life, which will eventually create a tapestry of the cycle of life itself, when one of the parents becomes ill and dies. This imperanence of life that Ozu shows us is done by letting us glimpse the normal day to day life of both the children [now adults] and the parents who are now in old age. And this is what makes this film so great. We are given a snapshot of life, and yet the way Ozu is able to present the film makes the film much more profound and poignant than any American film-maker has ever done: For Ozu does not cop-out with a happy ending.

I first saw this film with my father in the early 1970's at the now defunct Fox Theatre in Venice, California. I was much younger then, and the film did not resonate with me at the time. Now that I am older, and wiser, I realized why my father loved this film so much. [He died in 1978]. And whenever I view this film, it reminds me of him. When I watched the film again last night, I realized why my father loved this film as much as he did---it is a film that will move you deeply and emotionally. The film is both profound and sad. The children who feel inconvenienced by their parents later feel remorse when their mother Tomi is gravely ill.

It is only then that the children pay heed to her and rush back to their parents village to grieve for their mother Tomi. The children now truly realize how indifferent and non-emotional they were to their parents needs. This movie is often referred to as a film about generational conflicts which in itself are universal and timeless. More importantly however, is that "Tokyo Story" allows us look at our own lives, and see our we relate to our loved ones here and now. I highly recommend this great film to everyone. [Stars: 5+]

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