is a 1953
Japanese drama film
In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. Drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular super- ...
directed by
Yasujirō Ozu and starring
Chishū Ryū
was a Japanese actor who, in a career lasting 65 years, appeared in over 160 films and about 70 television productions.
Early life
Ryū was born in Tamamizu Village, Tamana County, a rural area of Kumamoto Prefecture in Kyushu, the most southe ...
and
Chieko Higashiyama
was a Japanese stage and film actress. She appeared in more than 60 films from 1936 to 1967.
Career
Graduating from the girls' school at Gakushuin, she married a businessman in 1909 and spent eight years in Moscow. In 1925, at the age of 35, ...
about an aging couple who travel to
Tokyo
Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.46 ...
to visit their grown children. Upon release, it did not immediately gain international recognition and was considered "too Japanese" to be marketable by Japanese film exporters. It was screened in 1957 in London, where it won the inaugural
Sutherland Trophy the following year, and received praise from U.S. film critics after a 1972 screening in New York City.
''Tokyo Story'' is widely regarded as Ozu's masterpiece and
one of the greatest films in history of cinema. It was voted the greatest film of all time in the 2012 edition of a widely-respected poll of film directors by ''
Sight & Sound'' magazine.
Plot
Retired couple Shūkichi and Tomi Hirayama live in
Onomichi
is a city located in Hiroshima Prefecture, Japan, facing the Inland Sea. The city was founded on April 1, 1898. As of April 30, 2016, the city has an estimated population of 141,811 and a population density of 497.8 persons per km2. The total a ...
in western Japan with their daughter Kyōko, a primary school teacher. They have five adult children, four of whom are living. The couple travel to
Tokyo
Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.46 ...
to visit their son, daughter, and widowed daughter-in-law.
Their eldest son, Kōichi, is a
physician
A physician (American English), medical practitioner (Commonwealth English), medical doctor, or simply doctor, is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through th ...
who runs a small clinic in Tokyo's suburbs, and their eldest daughter, Shige, runs a hairdressing salon. Kōichi and Shige are both busy and do not have much time for their parents. Only their widowed daughter-in-law, Noriko, the wife of their middle son Shōji, who was missing in action and presumed dead during the
Pacific War
The Pacific War, sometimes called the Asia–Pacific War, was the theater of World War II that was fought in Asia, the Pacific Ocean, the Indian Ocean, and Oceania. It was geographically the largest theater of the war, including the vas ...
, goes out of her way to entertain them. She takes time from her busy office job to take Shūkichi and Tomi on a sightseeing tour of metropolitan Tokyo.
Feeling conflicted that they don't have time to entertain them, Kōichi and Shige pay for their parents to stay at a
hot spring spa at
Atami but they return early because the nightlife there disturbs their sleep. Tomi also has an unexplained dizzy spell. Upon returning, a frustrated Shige explains that she sent them to Atami because she wanted to use their bedroom for a meeting; the elderly couple has to leave for the evening. Tomi goes to stay with Noriko, with whom she deepens their emotional bond, and advises her to remarry. Shūkichi, meanwhile, gets drunk with some old friends from Onomichi. The three men drunkenly ramble about their children and lives. A policeman brings Shūkichi and one of his friends to Shige's salon. Shige is outraged that her father is lapsing into the alcoholic ways that overshadowed her childhood.
The couple remarks on how their children have changed, returning home earlier than planned, intending to see their younger son Keizō when the train stops in
Osaka
is a designated city in the Kansai region of Honshu in Japan. It is the capital of and most populous city in Osaka Prefecture, and the third most populous city in Japan, following Special wards of Tokyo and Yokohama. With a population of ...
. However, Tomi suddenly becomes ill during the journey and they decide to disembark the train, staying until she feels better the next day. They return to Onomichi, and Tomi falls critically ill. Kōichi, Shige, and Noriko rush to Onomichi to see Tomi, who dies shortly afterwards. Keizō arrives too late, as he has been away on business.
After the funeral, Kōichi, Shige, and Keizō leave immediately; only Noriko remains. After they leave, Kyōko criticises her siblings over their selfishness toward their parents. She believes that Kōichi, Shige, and Keizō do not care how hard it will be for their father now that he has lost their mother. She is also upset at Shige for asking so quickly for Tomi's clothes as keepsakes. Noriko responds that while she understands Kyōko's disappointment, everyone has their own life and the growing chasm between parents and children is inevitable. She convinces Kyōko not to be too hard on her siblings because one day she will understand how hard it is to take time away from one's own life.
After Kyōko leaves for school, Noriko informs her father-in-law that she must return to Tokyo that afternoon. Shūkichi tells her that she has treated them better than their own children despite not being a blood relation. Noriko protests that she is selfish and has not always thought about her missing husband, and Shūkichi credits her self-assessment to humility. He gives her a watch from the late Tomi as a memento. Noriko cries and confesses her loneliness; Shūkichi encourages her to remarry as soon as possible, wanting her to be happy. Noriko travels from Onomichi back to Tokyo, contemplating the watch, while Shūkichi remains behind, resigned to the solitude he must endure.
Hirayama family tree
Cast
*
Chishū Ryū
was a Japanese actor who, in a career lasting 65 years, appeared in over 160 films and about 70 television productions.
Early life
Ryū was born in Tamamizu Village, Tamana County, a rural area of Kumamoto Prefecture in Kyushu, the most southe ...
as
*
Chieko Higashiyama
was a Japanese stage and film actress. She appeared in more than 60 films from 1936 to 1967.
Career
Graduating from the girls' school at Gakushuin, she married a businessman in 1909 and spent eight years in Moscow. In 1925, at the age of 35, ...
as
*
Setsuko Hara as
*
Haruko Sugimura as
*
So Yamamura
was a Japanese actor and film director. He was also known by the name Satoshi Yamamura, while his actual birth name is Koga Hirosada. Yamamura graduated from University of Tokyo. In 1942, Yamamura and Isao Yamagata formed the ''Bunkaza Theatre ...
as
*
Kuniko Miyake
was a Japanese actress. She appeared in nearly 200 films between 1934 and 1991.
Career
After graduating from Kuki High School, Miyake joined the Shochiku film studios in 1934 and made her film debut the same year with ''Yume no sasayaki''. She ...
as
*
Kyōko Kagawa as
*
Eijirō Tōno as
*
Nobuo Nakamura
was a Japanese actor, who made notable appearances in the films of Akira Kurosawa and Yasujirō Ozu in the 1950s and 1960s. Perhaps his most famous roles in the West were those of the callous deputy mayor in Kurosawa's '' Ikiru'' (1952), and the ...
as
* Shirō Ōsaka as
* Hisao Toake as
* Teruko Nagaoka as
*
Mutsuko Sakura as a patron of the Oden Restaurant
* Toyo Takahashi as Shūkichi Hirayama's neighbour
* Tōru Abe as a railway employee
* Sachiko Mitani as Noriko's neighbour
* Zen Murase as Minoru Hirayama, Kōichi's son
* Mitsuhiro Mori as Isamu Hirayama, Kōichi's son
* Junko Anami as a beauty salon assistant
* Ryōko Mizuki as a beauty salon client
* Yoshiko Togawa as a beauty salon client
* Kazuhiro Itokawa as a student
* Keijirō Morozumi as a police agent
* Tsutomu Nijima as Noriko's office boss
* Shōzō Suzuki as Noriko's office colleague
* Yoshiko Tashiro as a hotel maid
* Haruko Chichibu as a hotel maid
* Takashi Miki as a singer
* Binnosuke Nagao as the doctor at Onomichi
Production
''Tokyo Story'' was inspired by the 1937 American film ''
Make Way for Tomorrow
''Make Way for Tomorrow'' is a 1937 American drama film directed by Leo McCarey. The plot concerns an elderly couple (played by Victor Moore and Beulah Bondi) who are forced to separate when they lose their house and none of their five children ...
'', directed by
Leo McCarey. Noda initially suggested the plot of the older film to Ozu, who hadn't seen it. Noda remembered it from its initial release in Japan. Both films depict an elderly couple and their problems with their family and both films depict the couple 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 more cultural and emotional. The two films also end differently.
David Bordwell
David Jay Bordwell (; born July 23, 1947) is an American film theorist and film historian. Since receiving his PhD from the University of Iowa in 1974, he has written more than fifteen volumes on the subject of cinema including ''Narration in ...
wrote that Ozu "re-cast" the original film instead of adapting it.
The script was developed by
Yasujirō Ozu and his long-time collaborator
Kōgo Noda
was a Japanese screenwriter most famous for collaborating with Yasujirō Ozu on many of the director's films.
Born in Hakodate, Noda was the son of the head of the local tax bureau and younger brother to Kyūho, a Nihonga painter. He moved to Na ...
over a period of 103 days in a
ryokan called
''Chigasakikan'' in
Chigasaki,
Kanagawa. Ozu, Noda and cinematographer Yūharu Atsuta scouted locations in
Tokyo
Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.46 ...
and
Onomichi
is a city located in Hiroshima Prefecture, Japan, facing the Inland Sea. The city was founded on April 1, 1898. As of April 30, 2016, the city has an estimated population of 141,811 and a population density of 497.8 persons per km2. The total a ...
for another month before shooting started. Shooting and editing the film took place from July to October 1953. Filming locations were in
Tokyo
Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.46 ...
(
Adachi,
Chūō,
Taitō
is a special ward located in Tokyo Metropolis, Japan. In English, it is known as Taitō City.
As of May 1, 2015, the ward has an estimated population of 186,276, and a population density of 18,420 persons per km2. The total area is . Thi ...
and
Chiyoda),
Onomichi
is a city located in Hiroshima Prefecture, Japan, facing the Inland Sea. The city was founded on April 1, 1898. As of April 30, 2016, the city has an estimated population of 141,811 and a population density of 497.8 persons per km2. The total a ...
,
Atami and
Osaka
is a designated city in the Kansai region of Honshu in Japan. It is the capital of and most populous city in Osaka Prefecture, and the third most populous city in Japan, following Special wards of Tokyo and Yokohama. With a population of ...
. 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
A car or automobile is a motor vehicle with wheels. Most definitions of ''cars'' say that they run primarily on roads, seat one to eight people, have four wheels, and mainly transport people instead of goods.
The year 1886 is regarded as t ...
, 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
was a Japanese actor who, in a career lasting 65 years, appeared in over 160 films and about 70 television productions.
Early life
Ryū was born in Tamamizu Village, Tamana County, a rural area of Kumamoto Prefecture in Kyushu, the most southe ...
said that Ozu was always happiest when finishing the final draft of a script and that there were never any changes to the final draft.
Style and themes
Like all of Ozu's sound films, ''Tokyo Storys pacing is slow. Important events are often not shown on screen but revealed through dialogue. For example, the train journeys to and from Tokyo are not depicted. A distinctive camera style is used, in which the camera height is low and almost never moves; film critic
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert (; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American film critic, film historian, journalist, screenwriter, and author. He was a film critic for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, Ebert beca ...
noted that the camera moves once in the film, which is "more than usual" for an Ozu film.
The low camera positions are also reminiscent of sitting on a traditional Japanese
tatami mat. Ozu rarely shot
master shots and often broke the
180-degree rule
Eighteen or 18 may refer to:
* 18 (number), the natural number following 17 and preceding 19
* one of the years 18 BC, AD 18, 1918, 2018
Film, television and entertainment
* ''18'' (film), a 1993 Taiwanese experimental film based on the shor ...
of filmmaking and screen direction. Characters, who often sit side by side in scenes, often appear to be facing the same direction when speaking to each other, such as in the first scene with Shūkichi and Tomi. During some transitions, characters exit a scene screen right and then enter the next scene screen right.
Ozu favored a stationary camera and believed strongly in
minimalism
In visual arts, music and other media, minimalism is an art movement that began in post–World War II in Western art, most strongly with American visual arts in the 1960s and early 1970s. Prominent artists associated with minimalism include Do ...
. David Desser has compared the film's style and "de-emphasized plot" to
Zen Buddhism
Zen ( zh, t=禪, p=Chán; ja, text= 禅, translit=zen; ko, text=선, translit=Seon; vi, text=Thiền) is a school of Mahayana Buddhism that originated in China during the Tang dynasty, known as the Chan School (''Chánzong'' 禪宗), an ...
and the modern world's fascination with surface value and materialism. Many of the transitional shots are still lifes of non-human subjects, such as smokestacks and landscapes. In his narrative storytelling, Ozu often had certain key scenes take place off camera with the viewer only learning about them through the characters' dialogue. The audience never sees Shūkichi and Tomi visit their son Keizō, and Tomi's illness begins off-screen.
Themes in the film include the break-up and
Westernization of the traditional Japanese family after
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
and the inevitability of children growing apart from their parents. The film takes place in 1953 post-war Japan, a few years after the new Civil Code of 1948 stimulated the country's rapid re-growth and embraced Western capitalist ideals while simultaneously destroying older traditions such as the Japanese family and its values. Ozu was very close to his own mother, living with her as a surrogate wife and never marrying. Ozu called ''Tokyo Story'' "the film that tends most strongly to melodrama." It is considered a
Shomin-geki
, literally ''common people drama'', is a pseudo-Japanese word invented by Western film scholars. It describes a genre of Japanese realist films which focus on the everyday lives of ordinary people. In Japanese the correct word for this genre is ...
film for its depiction of working-class people.
Release and reception
''Tokyo Story'' was released on November 3, 1953, in Japan. The following year
Haruko Sugimura won the
Mainichi Film Award for Best Supporting Actress
The Mainichi Film Award for Best Supporting Actress is a film award given at the Mainichi Film Award
The
are a series of annual film awards, sponsored by Mainichi Shinbun (毎日新聞), one of the largest newspaper companies in Japan, since 1 ...
for her role as the eldest daughter Shige.
It was screened at the
National Film Theatre in London in 1957. It is Ozu's best known film in both the East and the West. After the success of
Akira Kurosawa's ''
Rashomon
is a 1950 Jidaigeki psychological thriller/ crime film directed and written by Akira Kurosawa, working in close collaboration with cinematographer Kazuo Miyagawa. Starring Toshiro Mifune, Machiko Kyō, Masayuki Mori, and Takashi Shimura as v ...
'' at the
1951 Venice Film Festival, Japanese films began getting international distribution. However Japanese film exporters considered Ozu's work "too Japanese" and unmarketable. It was not until the 1960s that Ozu's films began to be screened in New York City at film festivals, museums, and theaters.
In 1958, it was awarded the first
Sutherland Trophy for the most original and creative film. UK critic
Lindsay Anderson wrote that "It is a film about relationships, a film about time, and how it affects human beings (particularly parents and children) and how we must reconcile ourselves to its workings."
After a screening at the New Yorker Theater in 1972, it received rave reviews from several prominent critics who were unfamiliar with the film or Ozu. Charles Micherer of ''
Newsweek
''Newsweek'' is an American weekly online news magazine co-owned 50 percent each by Dev Pragad, its president and CEO, and Johnathan Davis (businessman), Johnathan Davis, who has no operational role at ''Newsweek''. Founded as a weekly print m ...
'' said it was "like a Japanese paper flower that is dropped into water and then swells to fill the entire container with its beauty."
Stanley Kauffmann put it on his 10 Best list of 1972 and wrote "Ozu, a lyrical poet, whose lyrics swell quietly into the epic."
Box office
In Japan, it was the eighth
highest-grossing film of 1953 with in
distributor rental earnings. In France, the film sold 84,646 tickets upon release in 1978. In other European countries, the film sold 92,810 tickets between 1996 and 2021, for a combined tickets sold in Europe.
Critical reception
The film holds a 100% "Fresh" rating on the review aggregate website
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wan ...
, based on 49 critical reviews, with an average score of 9.60/10. The site's consensus reads: "''Tokyo Story'' is a Yasujiro Ozu masterpiece whose rewarding complexity has lost none of its power more than half a century on". 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
Time is the continued sequence of existence and event (philosophy), events that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various me ...
'' magazine lists it among its
All-Time 100 Movies.
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert (; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American film critic, film historian, journalist, screenwriter, and author. He was a film critic for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, Ebert beca ...
included it in his series of great movies,
and
Paul Schrader placed it in the "Gold" section of his Film Canon.
Martin Scorsese
Martin Charles Scorsese ( , ; born November 17, 1942) is an American film director, producer, screenwriter and actor. Scorsese emerged as one of the major figures of the New Hollywood era. He is the recipient of many major accolades, incl ...
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 indicates 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
The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...
; 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. Critic Wally Hammond stated that "the way Ozu builds up emotional empathy for a sense of disappointment in its various characters is where his mastery lies."
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert (; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American film critic, film historian, journalist, screenwriter, and author. He was a film critic for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, Ebert beca ...
wrote that the work "lacks sentimental triggers and contrived emotion; it looks away from moments a lesser movie would have exploited. It doesn't want to force our emotions, but to share its understanding."
[ In '']The Village Voice
''The Village Voice'' is an American news and culture paper, known for being the country's first alternative newsweekly. Founded in 1955 by Dan Wolf, Ed Fancher, John Wilcock, and Norman Mailer, the ''Voice'' began as a platform for the cr ...
'', Eric Hynes argued that "time itself is zus most potent weapon. Protracted sequences make you impatient for forward motion, but then, in an instant, you’re left to mourn beauties hastened away." In 2010, David Thomson rhetorically asked whether any other family drama in cinematic history was more moving than ''Tokyo Story''. Ebert called Ozu "universal", reported having never heard more weeping in an audience than during its showing, and later stated that the work "ennobles the cinema. It says, yes, a movie can help us make small steps against our imperfections."[ '']The Village Voice
''The Village Voice'' is an American news and culture paper, known for being the country's first alternative newsweekly. Founded in 1955 by Dan Wolf, Ed Fancher, John Wilcock, and Norman Mailer, the ''Voice'' began as a platform for the cr ...
'' ranked the film at number 36 in its Top 250 "Best Films of the Century" list in 1999, based on a poll of critics.
''Tokyo Story'' was voted at No. 14 on the list of "100 Greatest Films" by the prominent French magazine '' Cahiers du cinéma'' in 2008. In 2009 the film was named ''The Greatest Japanese Film of All Time'' by Japanese film magazine Kinema Junpo. ''Entertainment Weekly
''Entertainment Weekly'' (sometimes abbreviated as ''EW'') is an American digital-only entertainment magazine based in New York City, published by Dotdash Meredith, that covers film, television, music, Broadway theatre, books, and popular ...
'' voted it the 95th Greatest film of all time. Since 1992, the film has appeared consistently in the British Film Institute
The British Film Institute (BFI) is a film and television charitable organisation which promotes and preserves film-making and television in the United Kingdom. The BFI uses funds provided by the National Lottery to encourage film production, ...
polls of " greatest films" of directors and critics published in '' Sight & Sound''. On the critics' poll, it was third in 1992, fifth in 2002, and third again in 2012. On the directors' poll, it was 17th in 1992, tied at number 16 with '' Psycho'' and '' The Mirror'' in 2002, and in 2012 it topped the poll, receiving 48 votes out of the 358 directors polled. In 2022, it was 4th in both the critics' and directors' polls. In 2010, The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers '' The Observer'' and '' The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the ...
ranked the film 4th in its list of 25 greatest arthouse films.[ It ranked 3rd in BBC's 2018 list of The 100 greatest foreign language films voted by 209
film critics from 43 countries around the world.
]
Influence
German director Doris Dörrie
Doris Dörrie (; born 26 May 1955) is a German film director, producer and author.
Biography
Born in Hanover, Dörrie completed her secondary education there in 1973. The same year, she began a two-year attendance in film studies in the drama de ...
drew inspiration from ''Tokyo Story'' for her 2008 film '' Cherry Blossoms'', which follows a similar storyline.
In 2013 Yōji Yamada remade the film as '' Tōkyō Kazoku''.
Home media
The film was restored and released on DVD and Blu-ray by The Criterion Collection ( Region 1) and by Tartan Video in Region 2. In 2010, the BFI released a Region 2 dual-format edition (Blu-ray + DVD). Included with this release is a standard-definition presentation of ''Brothers and Sisters of the Toda Family
is a 1941 Japanese film directed by Yasujirō Ozu.
Plot
The upper-class Toda family celebrates the 69th birthday of their father with a commemorative photoshoot at their outdoor garden. Unfortunately, shortly after the photo session, the father ...
''.
References
Bibliography
*
*
*
*
External links
*
*
''Tokyo Story: Compassionate Detachment''
an essay by David Bordwell
David Jay Bordwell (; born July 23, 1947) is an American film theorist and film historian. Since receiving his PhD from the University of Iowa in 1974, he has written more than fifteen volumes on the subject of cinema including ''Narration in ...
at the Criterion Collection
The Criterion Collection, Inc. (or simply Criterion) is an American home-video distribution company that focuses on licensing, restoring and distributing "important classic and contemporary films." Criterion serves film and media scholars, cine ...
{{Authority control
1953 drama films
1953 films
Films about death
Films about old age
Films about widowhood
Films directed by Yasujirō Ozu
Films set in Atami
Films set in Tokyo
Films shot in Onomichi
Films shot in Tokyo
Films with screenplays by Kogo Noda
Films with screenplays by Yasujirō Ozu
Japanese black-and-white films
Japanese drama films
1950s Japanese-language films
Shochiku films
Social realism in film
1950s Japanese films