Charles Herold (cherold) When I was young, my reaction to film "classics" that I didn't like was that other people were simply wrong, but since that time I have come to understand that movies speak to people in very different ways. This movie is one I cannot connect with.In Tokyo Story, an elderly couple come to Tokyo to visit their children, who are too busy to spend much time with them. This dynamic plays out at a glacial pace. About a third of the way through the movie I came to believe it would be entirely plot less, and while it's not quite that, it is definitely got a lot more "Tokyo" in it than "Story."While the old people are very genial and pleasant, I didn't find their "story" that interesting. The movie did become more engrossing and affecting in its final third, but not enough to make up for the tedium of the first two thirds.The main reason I watched this movie was to see the brilliant Setsuko Hara, whose mesmerizing performance in Late Spring (also directed by Ozu) was most of the reason to watch it. She's very good here, but she's also got a pretty small part, which was very disappointing to me.Having seen two Ozu "classics" I'm thinking he's one of these highly admired film directors, like Godard or Jarmusch, whose appeal I find puzzling.Tokyo Story has been ranked by some as the greatest film ever made, but in a world of films like Rashomon, The Third Man, Citizen Kane, and Spirited Away, it's a label I cannot understand being placed on this particular movie.

Kyle Perez It's films like Yasujirō Ozu's 'Tokyo Story' that transcend the idea of a movie and enter the realm of art in its most pure and provoking form. Often considered the greatest achievement by a directed who constantly challenged his audience with pensive and realistic material, 'Tokyo Story' is a heartbreaking look at the passage of time and the gradual estrangement that unfolds between two parents and their absentee children. The realism of the film is undeniable, much of which stems from Ozu's long series of pillow shots seen throughout the film. These shots are cutaways, for no obvious narrative reason, that serve to add that extra depth and sentiment by letting the natural landscape and surrounding themes sink in that much more. Many of Ozu's pillow shots convey darkness or the transience of family memories and, by letting these shots linger on for several seconds, his narrative is quietly telling us that the flow of the world around them continues to truck along. These shots are as enigmatic as the feelings of the characters we come to know in the film, saying one thing but doing so with faces that would suggest a hidden subtext. At the film's most heartbreaking moments, we struggle to understand exactly HOW they feel though it's clear to us that their suffering exists - but to what end? Truly one of the most beautifully crafted creations to come out of Japanese cinema and even cinema in general. This film is a masterpiece in every sense of the word.

hhg2 I have always considered myself a film buff but I just didn't get Tokyo Story. I've enjoyed silent films and "art" films, but this 2+ hour long examination of an elderly couple visiting the big city of Tokyo to visit many of their children and in-laws was painful to watch. I clicked on the "spoiler alert" box but there is really nothing that can be spoiled: the plot is so "everyday life of ordinary people" that there is no suspense at any point in the movie. The parents are very simple people and speak simply, often only affirming or negating a question by saying "yes," "no," or "is that right?" So there is nothing resembling sterling dialogue. No, it is a character study of relationships among the family that carries on interminably.What was odd to me was how unconcerned their children were about the visit and how little they were willing to sacrifice in time for their parents even as the trip must have been long-prepared. Perhaps the cognitive dissonance of my associating Asian cultures with respecting the elderly (if not their parents!) was surprising to me. Most people would have treated elderly strangers with more consideration. Their indifference was almost painful to watch. It was almost as if the director wanted to make the children as selfish and negligent as possible and exaggerated their flaws.The cinematography was excellent but it, too, seemed odd as if beautiful scenic shots were interspersed among the tight interior shots where the sparse dialogue was taking place. It did break up the monotony of the first-grade level vocabulary and dialogue.Give me the weakest Kurosawa any day over this. And Roger Ebert gave it 4 stars (highest rating) and said it was one of the greatest movies EVER made. I'm giving it 6 stars because I must be missing something obvious.

frankwiener This is a beautiful film, carefully and lovingly directed by Yasujiro Ozu, with a very basic story that conveys very profound messages on several different levels, the highest being the awareness of life's deepest disappointments, not only by those in the final years of their lives but by those who experience devastating loss at a young age as well. On a different but related level, this is one of the most successful and most effective depictions of life in post-World War II Japan that I have ever seen. The war, with enormously traumatic and devastating consequences to the people of Japan, had ended only eight years earlier.Although I am not an expert at the "tatami-mat" camera shot, which is taken from the floor to the ceiling of the several interior rooms, almost every scene seemed like a framed painting to me with the central characters deliberately placed in specific positions that strongly conveyed a statement about their cultural, social or emotional status through the artistic means of understatement. The emphasis was on their emotional circumstance, which pertained not only to the universal human condition of aging itself but to this critical recovery period of Japanese modern history, which, to me, is very significant in its own right.I regret that other reviewers apparently have never been immersed in Japanese culture, including exposure to uniquely Japanese mannerisms and ways of speaking, as I was for three years of my life because these folks were obviously distracted by mere superficiality to the point that they could not appreciate this film as the timeless cinematic masterpiece that it is.Other reviews have sufficiently described the simple story, so I won't repeat what has already been written. The segment of the elderly couple being shipped to the inappropriately "lively" Atami spa/resort deliberately emphasized how disconnected the couple's children were to their basic needs and desires in the closing stage of their lives to the point that their "well intentional" decisions actually caused at least one of their parents serious, physical harm. Beyond the film's very important theme concerning the universal, human condition of being insensitively discarded by society and family before the end of life, another significant aspect of the film is the very subtle but compelling message of the cost of war to Japan. We witness this in the pathetic reunion of the elderly drinking buddies as they discuss the loss of their sons to the war, and, even more forcefully, we feel it through the sad loss experienced by Noriko, the kind, devoted daughter-in-law, as if we are living her deep sorrow firsthand. Accolades to the beautiful Setsuko Hara, who portrayed the role so impeccably. Through all of the sad beauty within her and around her, how could we not fall in love with her by the end of the movie? Have you ever met anyone with such inner beauty in real life or is Noriko someone who can only exist in the wonderful world of the cinema?