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An elderly couple visit their grownup children in this stunning work of art from 1953, now re-released for its 70th anniversary

The exquisite sadness of Yasujiro Ozu’s 1953 film, now re-released for its 70th anniversary, does not get any more bearable or less overwhelming with time. With each repeated viewing, the film of tears obscuring my own view of its star Setsuko Hara appears earlier and earlier, making her heartbreakingly decent, courageous smile shimmer and wobble. Ozu’s distinctive and stylised idiom, with low shooting angles and direct sightlines into camera, creates something mesmerically formal to match the drama’s emotional restraint, which is more devastating when the dam is breached. When Hara’s smile finally drops, it is like a gunshot.

Chieko Higashiyama and Ozu’s repertory stalwart Chishu Ryu play the elderly Tomi and Shukichi, who live in the quiet town of Onomichi; they are gentle country mice, almost childlike in the calm,...

One Shot is a series that seeks to find an essence of cinema history in one single image of a movie. Surrounded by the stillness and tranquillity of nature, anchored by the building facade of her eldest son’s home, Tomi (Chieko Higashiyama) quietly watches her grandson play with the grass of the fields that surround them. This enigmatic shot is from Yasujirō Ozu‘s Tokyo Story (1953), a film widely considered to be the director’s magnus opus and one deeply rooted in the examination of everyday life in 1950s Japan, yet universal in its exploration of familial relations, loss, and the upending of tradition. The story follows an aging couple, played by Ozu regulars Chishu Ryu and Higashiyama, who travel from their tiny town of Onomichi to bustling postwar Tokyo in order to visit their adult children. The couple, however, discover that they are too preoccupied with their demanding...

You don’t need great performances for a great movie, we suppose — Nikolaus Geyrhalter’s mesmerizing 2016 documentary/art piece “Homo Sapiens,” for instance, doesn’t feature a single human being on screen and is still excellent. But on the whole, the two things go hand in hand: it’s impossible to imagine “Lawrence Of Arabia” without Peter O’Toole, “Star Wars” without Harrison Ford, “Cabaret” without Liza Minnelli, or “Tokyo Story” without Chishu Ryu and Chieko Higashiyama, to name but a few.

Continue reading The Best Performances Of 2017 at The Playlist.

Moviefone's Top DVD of the Week:

"The World's End"

What's It About? The third installment of Edgar Wright's Cornetto Trilogy, following 2004's "Shaun of the Dead" and 2007's "Hot Fuzz," "The World's End" features a group of five reuniting friends. They embark on an epic drinking marathon in an effort to top their pub crawl from 20 years prior, only this time an unexpected alien invasion strikes.

Why We're In: A refreshing blend of comedy and sci-fi, "The World's End" is the perfectly charming film to spoof the apocalypse genre and keep you endlessly entertained. Plus, it features hilarious (as always) performances from Wright staples Nick Frost and Simon Pegg.

Watch: Go behind-the-scenes on "The World's End" (Video)

Moviefone's Top Blu-ray of the Week:

"Tokyo Story" (Criterion Collection)

What's It About? Yasujirô Ozu's ("Late Spring") 1953 classic, "Tokyo Story," tells the sad story of elderly couple Shukichi (Chishu Ryu) and...

On Monday, Shochiku announced Yoji Yamada’s next film, Tokyo Kazoku (literally “Tokyo Family”), an homage to Yasujiro Ozu’s 1953 film, “Tokyo Story”. Production will begin in early 2011, which also happens to be the 50th year of Yamada’s filmmaking career.

In Ozu’s original film, an elderly couple (played by Chishu Ryu and Chieko Higashiyama) travel to the city to visit their adult children and grandchildren. However, aside from their widowed daughter-in-law Noriko (Setsuko Hara), their children are now far too preoccupied with their own busy lives to pay much attention to their parents.

Yamada’s take will be similar, but will obviously have a few differences in that it’s set in modern-day Tokyo.

“I was always attracted to Tokyo Story as a film,” said Yamada, “and also its great structure of depicting family and human beings, which have always been a center of my interest as a subject to my films.

Spread (18)

(David Mackenzie, 2009, Us) Ashton Kutcher, Anne Heche, Margarita Levieva. 97 mins

Rising Scottish director Mackenzie (Young Adam, Hallam Foe) goes stateside, and like many before him, focuses on the soulless superficiality of the Los Angeles lifestyle. Some might say Kutcher playing an ambitious himbo who targets older women was hardly a stretch, but he proves he can actually act here, as he demonstrates his calculated seduction technique by hooking up with Anne Heche and installing himself in her luxurious apartment. But then he meets his match (Levieva), and might just be falling in love, which is where the story starts to come apart a little, ultimately being neither sufficiently deep nor superficial. Still, it's a stylish, contemporary satire with a few surprises up its sleeve – or should that be down its pants?

Did You Hear About The Morgans? (PG)

(Marc Lawrence, 2009, Us) Sarah Jessica Parker, Hugh Grant, Sam Elliott. 104 mins...