Shuhei Hirayama (Chishu Ryu) has settled into a complacent, domestic life of a widower with his adult children – his son Kazuo (Shinichiro Mikami) and daughter Michiko (Shima Iwashita) – in postwar Tokyo. Michiko is his only daughter, and has naturally assumed the role of lady of the house after her mother’s death. Upon hearing […]
On the death anniversary of the Miwa family patriarch, Miwa’s gracious and noble widow Akiko (Setsuko Hara), their 24-year old daughter Ayako (Yôko Tsukasa), and brother Shukichi (Chishu Ryu), host a reunion with Miwa’s longtime friends for a memorial service and intimate reception at a seaside resort. The three middle-aged friends, who once competed in […]
Ohayo is a clever, humorous, and lighthearted glimpse into contemporary Japanese life, as seen through the eyes of the Hayashi brothers: Minoru (Koji Shidara) and Isamu (Masahiko Shimazu). In a close knit suburban village of 1950’s Japan, there is only one television set in the neighborhood, and the children religiously make an after school pilgrimage, […]
A panoramic, low angle opening montage of an idyllic Japanese coastal province defines the understated, cinematic poetry of Yasujiro Ozu: a lighthouse framed against a tranquil sea; docked boats undulating with the sweeping waves; villagers weaving lackadaisically through local shops, as much for social interaction as for commerce. A struggling, itinerant acting troupe arrives into […]
Wataru Hirayama (Shin Saburi) speaks with nostalgic, muted tenderness as he recalls his arranged marriage to his wife, Kiyoko (Kinuyo Tanaka) at the wedding reception of his friend, Kawai’s (Nobuo Nakamura) elder daughter. Despite his own traditional marriage, he celebrates the freedom of young people to carve out their own destinies in the postwar, Western […]
To experience a Yasujiro Ozu film is to immerse in the reserved, quiet grace of a disappearing traditional culture. Tokyo Story is a languidly paced, subtly poignant, and exquisitely realized story of the Hirayamas, an aging couple from the provincial town of Onomichi who travel to postwar reconstructed Tokyo in order to visit their children, […]