Tokyo Story (1953) ( Tôkyô monogatari )

Tokyo Story (1953) (Blu-Ray) (*)

$50.99

Original Title: Tôkyô monogatari
Screened, competed or awarded at:
Other Film Festival Awards

Language Selections:
English ( Subtitles )
Japanese ( Dolby Digital 2.0 )
Japanese ( Dolby Linear PCM )

Product Origin/Format:
United Kingdom ( Blu-Ray/Region B )

Running Time:
136 min

Aspect Ratio:
Fullscreen

Special Features:
Biographies
Interactive Menu
Scene Access
Black & White
Booklet

Movie filmed in 1953 and produced in:
Japan ( India, Eastern Asia )

Directed By:
Yasujiro Ozu

Written By:
Kôgo Noda
Yasujiro Ozu

Actors:
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
Toyo Takahashi ..... Shukichi Hirayama's Neighbor
Tôru Abe ..... Train employee

Synopsis:

As with much of director Yasujiro Ozu's work, a plot summary of this film does not do justice to the emotional power that Ozu lends to this sad, understated tale. An elderly couple, Shukichi (Chishu Ryu) and Tomi Hirayama (Chieko Higashiyama), leaves their small coastal village in southern Japan to visit their married children in Tokyo. Their eldest son, Koichi (So Yamamura), a doctor running a clinic in a working-class part of town, is too busy to show them around town, and their eldest daughter is occupied with her beauty salon. Only their widowed daughter-in-law, Noriko, played memorably by Setsuko Hara, is willing to take time off work to show the couple the sights of Tokyo. The older children arrange for their parents to visit Atami Hot Springs, but the unimpressed couple soon returns to Tokyo. Tomi stays with her daughter-in-law while Shukichi goes out drinking with some of his buddies, and the bunch complains about their vague sense of disappointment toward their children. Later, he stumbles into his daughter Shige's (Haruko Sugimura ) house late at night. On the way back to their village, tragedy strikes. The callous inattention that son and daughter paid to their parents becomes unamendable. Shige and Koichi quickly return to their busy lives in Tokyo after the funeral, as Noriko and youngest daughter Kyoko (Kyoko Kagawa) remain.

An elderly couple are visiting their children in Tokyo. The children are all grown-ups and have their own responsibilities. Of the five children, only a daughter has stayed in their village with their parents.First, they visit their older son, a family doctor in a popular Tokyo neighbourhood. After being greeted by their rude grandchildren, they decide to sightsee the city, but they have to call it off, as the doctor is summoned to tend to a very sick person.Then, the couple visit their second child. She is a busy hairdresser, married and without children. The second child convinces everybody to pack her parents to a summer resort. They can't stand the noise and all the drunk people there, so they come back to their second child's home. When they have just made up their minds, she feels a little tired and dizzy. The hairdresser has been preparing a home party with some other fellow hairdressers, so she makes her parents feel unwelcome and a nuisance.The third son had died in the war, leaving a young childless widow. The elderly couple decides to split. The grandmother will go to her daughter-in-law's, and the grandfather will visit some old friends from his army years.The grandmother admits to her daughter-in-law that her son had not made her happy, and encourages her to re-marry again. She isn't keen on the idea. The grandfather gets drunk with his two friends, as he used to be all the time when he was younger. His two friends are all disappointed in their children. The grandfather is so as well: he wanted his doctor son to be famous, rick and have good earnings but he is actually a doctor in a working-class district; and his daughter is stubborn and bad-humoured. The friends haven't got a place for the grandfather to stay, so he tries to go back home. A policeman finds him drunk late at night on the street and takes him to the hairdresser's home.The grandparents decide to go back to their village sooner than expected. Grandma tells their children that they have been good to them, so if anything bad happens to the grandparents, they don't need to visit to them in the village. Grandparents will make a final stop on their journey: their younger son lives in a city on their way.However, grandma feels really sick soon. Telegrams are sent, and their children have to visit her. The next day, grandma dies. The younger brother is the last one to arrive - when Grandma has already passed away - as he is a salesman and was out of home working. The hairdresser is bossy, although it is the daughter living in the village who is the one to take care of all the details.The doctor, the hairdresser and the younger son leave the village the same day, returning to their lives, jobs... Only the widowed sister-in-law stays for almost a week, helping the village daughter. The village daughter brands her siblings as 'ungrateful, rude...'. Finally, the sister-in-law needs to go back to her job as well.Grandpa stays in the village with her daughter, promising never to drink again.

Elderly couple Shukishi and Tomi Hirayama live in the small coastal village of Onomichi, Japan with their youngest daughter, schoolteacher Kyoko Hirayama. Their other three surviving adult children, who they have not seen in quite some time, live either in Tokyo or Osaka. As such, Shukishi and Tomi make the unilateral decision to have an extended visit in Tokyo with their children, pediatrician Koichi Hirayama and beautician Shige Kaneko, and their respective families (which includes two grandchildren). In transit, they make an unexpected stop in Osaka and stay with their other son, Keiso Hirayama. All of their children treat the visit more as an obligation than a want, each trying to figure out what to do with their parents while they continue on with their own daily lives. At one point, they even decide to ship their parents off to an inexpensive resort at Atami Hot Springs rather than spend time with them. The only offspring who makes a concerted effort on this trip is Noriko Hirayama, their widowed daughter-in-law, whose husband, Shoji Hirayama, was killed eight years earlier in the war. Following the vacation, each child comes to some conclusion of their general behavior toward their parents, not only on this trip but throughout their entire adult lives. For some, this realization may come too late.

This product was added to our catalog on Thursday 25 November, 2010.

Customers who bought this product also purchased

Peeping Tom (1960) (Blu-Ray)	Early Summer (1951) (Blu-Ray)	Bright Star (Blu-Ray)
Touch of Evil - 2-Disc Set (Blu-Ray)	Late Spring / The Only Son (Blu-Ray)