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.

Production Budget Analysis

The production budget for Tokyo Story (1953) has not been publicly disclosed.

CAST: Chishū Ryū, Chieko Higashiyama, Setsuko Hara, Haruko Sugimura, So Yamamura, Kuniko Miyake DIRECTOR: Yasujirō Ozu CINEMATOGRAPHY: Yûharu Atsuta MUSIC: Takanobu Saitō PRODUCTION: Shochiku

Box Office Performance

Theatrical box office data is not publicly available for Tokyo Story (1953). This may indicate a limited release, direct-to-streaming, or a release predating modern box office tracking.

Profitability Assessment

Insufficient publicly available data to assess profitability.

INDUSTRY IMPACT

PRODUCTION NOTES

▸ Production

Tokyo Story was inspired by the 1937 American film Make Way for Tomorrow, directed by Leo McCarey, which it loosely adapts to the Japanese context and Ozu’s style. Noda, a long-time collaborator of Ozu, initially suggested the plot of the older film to Ozu, who had not seen it. Noda remembered it from its initial release in Japan. Both films depict an elderly couple, their problems with family and travelling to visit their children. Differences include the older film taking place in Depression-era US, with the couple's problem being economical and Tokyo Story taking place in post-war Japan, where the problems are cultural and emotional. The films end differently. David Bordwell wrote that Ozu "re-cast" the original film instead of adapting it.

The script was developed by Ozu and Noda over a period of 103 days in a ryokan called Chigasakikan in Chigasaki, Kanagawa. Ozu, Noda and cinematographer Yūharu Atsuta scouted locations in Tokyo and Onomichi for another month before shooting started. Shooting and editing took place from July to October 1953. Filming locations were in Tokyo (Adachi, Chūō, Taitō and Chiyoda), Onomichi, Atami and Osaka. Among the major cast members only Ryū, Hara and Kagawa participated in the Onomichi location. All indoor scenes, except those at the Tokyo Station waiting area and in a passenger car, were shot at the Shochiku Ōfuna Studio in Kamakura, Kanagawa. Ozu used the same film crew and actors he had worked with for many years. Actor Chishū Ryū said Ozu was always happiest when finishing the final draft of a script and there were never any changes to the final draft.

AWARDS & RECOGNITION

Summary: 3 wins total

CRITICAL RECEPTION

It is also jointly ranked #1 on Metacritic's Filtered "Best Movies of All Time". John Walker, former editor of the Halliwell's Film Guides, places Tokyo Story at the top of his published list of the best 1000 films ever made. Tokyo Story is also included in film critic Derek Malcolm's The Century of Films, a list of films which he deems artistically or culturally important, and Time magazine lists it among its All-Time 100 Movies. Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times included it in his series of great movies, Martin Scorsese included it on a list of "39 Essential Foreign Films for a Young Filmmaker."

Arthur Nolletti Jr, writing an essay in the book titled Ozu's Tokyo Story, compared the film to its USA predecessor film, McCarey's 1937 Make Way for Tomorrow, and indicated that: "David Bordwell sees Ozu as 'recasting' the American film – borrowing from it, adapting it – and briefly mentions that there are similarities in story, theme and plot structure. Indeed these similarities are striking. Both films focus on an elderly couple who discover that their grown children regard them as a burden; both films are structured as journeys in which the couple are shuffled from one household to another; both films explore much of the same thematic material (e.g., sibling self-centeredness and parental disillusionment); and both films are about the human condition – the cyclical pattern of life with its concomitant joys and sorrows – and the immediate social realities that affect and shape that condition: in McCarey's film, The Great Depression; in Ozu's, the intensified postwar push toward industrialization. Primarily sober in tone but possessing rich and gentle humor, both films belong to a genre that in Japanese cinema is called shomin-geki, films dealing with the everyday lives of the lower middle classes."

Tokyo Story is often admired as a work that achieves great emotional effect while avoiding melodrama.