is a 1957 Japanese drama film by

Yasujirō Ozu was a Japanese filmmaker. He began his career during the era of silent films, and his last films were made in colour in the early 1960s. Ozu first made a number of short comedies, before turning to more serious themes in the 1930s. The most pr ...

. It is the story of two sisters (played by

Ineko Arima is a Japanese stage and film actress. She has appeared in films of directors such as Yasujirō Ozu, Mikio Naruse and Kon Ichikawa was a Japanese film director and screenwriter. His work displays a vast range in genre and style, from the anti ...

and Ozu regular

Setsuko Hara was a Japanese actress. Though best known for her performances in Yasujirō Ozu's films '' Late Spring'' (1949) and ''Tokyo Story'' (1953), she had already appeared in 67 films before working with Ozu. :ja:原節子 She is widely considere ...

) who are reunited with a mother who left them as children. The film is considered amongst Ozu's darkest postwar films; it is well received though lesser known. It is his last film shot in black and white.

Synopsis

Akiko Sugiyama (

) is a college student learning English

shorthand Shorthand is an abbreviated symbolic writing method that increases speed and brevity of writing as compared to Cursive, longhand, a more common method of writing a language. The process of writing in shorthand is called stenography, from the Gr ...

. Her elder sister Takako (

), running away from an unhappy marriage, has returned home to stay with Akiko and their father Shukichi (

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, Kumamoto, Tamana County, a rural area of Kumamoto Prefecture in Kyushu ...

) in

Tokyo Tokyo, officially the Tokyo Metropolis, is the capital of Japan, capital and List of cities in Japan, most populous city in Japan. With a population of over 14 million in the city proper in 2023, it is List of largest cities, one of the most ...

, together with her toddler girl. Shukichi works in a bank in Tokyo. Akiko has a relationship with her college boyfriend Kenji (Masami Taura), which results in an unwanted pregnancy. Later, Akiko has an

abortion Abortion is the early termination of a pregnancy by removal or expulsion of an embryo or fetus. Abortions that occur without intervention are known as miscarriages or "spontaneous abortions", and occur in roughly 30–40% of all pregnan ...

, after an encounter in which she realizes that her boyfriend does not love her. While going to a

mahjong Mahjong (English pronunciation: ; also transliterated as mah jongg, mah-jongg, and mahjongg) is a tile-based game that was developed in the 19th century in China and has spread throughout the world since the early 20th century. It is played ...

parlour to look for Kenji, Akiko comes across its proprietress Kisako (

Isuzu Yamada was a Japanese stage and screen actress whose career spanned seven decades. Biography Yamada was born in Osaka as Mitsu Yamada, the daughter of Kusudu Yamada, a shinpa actor specialising in onnagata roles, and Ritsu, a geisha. Under her mothe ...

), who seems to know a lot about her family. Back at home, Takako hears about Kisako from Akiko, and pieces together the fact that she is their long-lost mother. Takako visits the parlour to ask Kisako not to reveal to Akiko who she really is – but the plan backfires. Akiko learns of her visit and goes to confront Takako. Takako then discloses to her that Kisako is their mother, who ran away with another man when Akiko was still a toddler. Shaken, Akiko goes to confront Kisako to ask if she is the daughter of her father. She leaves in a huff, upset by Kisako abandoning her as a child, then goes to a Chinese noodle shop for some

sake Sake, , or saki, also referred to as Japanese rice wine, is an alcoholic beverage of Japanese origin made by fermenting rice that has been polished to remove the bran. Despite the name ''Japanese rice wine'', sake, and indeed any East Asi ...

. Her boyfriend Kenji enters, and the two have an argument. Akiko leaves angrily, and she is hit by a train at an intersection just outside the shop. Akiko is badly injured, and she expresses the wish to live and start life over again in the presence of her father and sister. In the next scene, however, in one of Ozu's famous ellipses, a bitter Takako goes to visit her mother to tell her the news of Akiko's death. Kisako is distraught, and agrees with her husband that she will leave Tokyo for his new job in Hokkaido. Just prior to their departure, she goes to the Sugiyamas to offer her condolences, and to tell Takako of her decision. Takako does not go to send her off at the railway station. In the last scene of the film, Takako reveals to her father that she is going back to her husband to try to make their marriage work again. She does not want her daughter to have the same experience as Akiko, who grew up without knowing one of her parents. Shukichi agrees with her decision.

Cast

Reception

Several reviewers consider ''Tokyo Twilight'' to be one of the director's bleakest works. While rarely screened, it has a 100% on

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, 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 ...

with an average rating of 7.8/10. In ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. It was founded on February 21, 1925, by Harold Ross and his wife Jane Grant, a reporter for ''The New York T ...

'',

Richard Brody Richard Brody (born January 22, 1958) is an American film critic, filmmaker and author. Background Brody grew up in Roslyn, New York. He is Jewish and has personally identified as an atheist. Brody attended Princeton University, receiving a B ...

argued: "This turbulent and grim family melodrama, from 1957, is steered away from the maudlin and given emotional depth and philosophical heft under the direction of Yasujiro Ozu." Fred Camper of the ''

Chicago Reader The ''Chicago Reader'', or ''Reader'' (stylized as ЯEADER), is an American alternative newspaper in Chicago, Illinois, noted for its literary style of journalism and coverage of the arts, particularly film and theater. The ''Reader'' has been ...

'' declared it one of the director's best works, and wrote: "The father and elder daughter try to meet the world with a gaze as steady as that of Ozu's static camera, ultimately resigning themselves to accepting tragedy, which is presented as inevitable in the flow of life."

Leonard Maltin Leonard Michael Maltin (born December 18, 1950) is an American film critic, film historian, and author. He is known for his book of film capsule reviews, '' Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide'', published from 1969 to 2014. Maltin was the film criti ...

gave it three and a half of four stars: "An aura of profound sadness permeates this quietly devastating account of the secrets and lies that eat away at the core of an otherwise average Japanese family." In 2009, the film was ranked at No. 106 on the list of the Greatest Japanese Films of All Time by Japanese film magazine ''

kinema Junpo , commonly called , is Japan's oldest film magazine and began publication in July 1919. It was first published three times a month, using the Japanese ''Jun'' (旬) system of dividing months into three parts, but the postwar ''Kinema Junpō'' ha ...

''.

Home media

In 2007,

The Criterion Collection The Criterion Collection, Inc. (or simply Criterion) is an American home video, home-video distribution company that focuses on licensing, restoring and distributing "important classic and contemporary films". A "sister company" of art film, arth ...

released the film as part of the DVD box set ''Eclipse Series 3: Late Ozu''.

References

External links

* * {{Authority control 1957 films 1957 drama films Japanese drama films Films directed by Yasujirō Ozu Films with screenplays by Yasujirō Ozu Films with screenplays by Kogo Noda Films set in Tokyo Japanese black-and-white films Shochiku films 1950s Japanese films