Tokyo Story

is a 1953 Japanese film directed by Yasujiro Ozu. It tells the story of an aging couple who travel to Tokyo to visit their grown children, but find their children are too absorbed in their own lives to spend much time with their parents. It is often regarded as Ozu's masterpiece, and has twice appeared in Sight & Sound magazine's 'Top Ten' list of the greatest films ever made.

Plot

Two elderly parents Shukichi (Chishu Ryu) and Tomi Hirayama (Chieko Higashiyama), from the small seaside town of Onomichi in southwest Japan, pay a visit to their busy children in Tokyo and Osaka. Only their youngest unmarried daughter lives with them: Kyoko (Kyoko Kagawa), a schoolteacher.

Upon arriving in Tokyo (before the advent of the bullet train, almost a day's journey), they find themselves neglected by their children. Their eldest son, Koichi (So Yamamura), is a district pediatrician with two boys. Their eldest daughter, Shige (Haruko Sugimura), is a hairdresser. The children wish to spend time with their parents, and do, to an extent; but, as they have lives, work and families of their own, they find it difficult to maintain a balance between the two. Only the couple's widowed daughter-in-law Noriko (Setsuko Hara) goes out of her way to entertain them. She takes them on a sightseeing tour of metropolitan Tokyo.

Koichi and Shige pay for their parents' cheap stay at the hot spring spa at Atami, but the parents return because the busy nightlife at the hotel interrupts their sleep. ...
Read More