Listonixio Fresh and Exciting

CrawlerChunky In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

Salubfoto It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

Guillelmina The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

boblipton I was speaking with my cigar-smoking buddy about John Ford/John Wayne/Maureen O'Hara movies -- we always watch THE QUIET MAN on Saint Patrick's Day. "Why does Wayne bother to tame her," he asked, "When he's going to have to do it all over again the next movie?" I've never been able to convince him of it, but I think the journey can be more fun than the destination. That's the thought that occurred to me when I looked at this movie this morning and saw Ozu's stock company running through variations on their unhappy yet loyal relationships to each other: Chishû Ryû as the father who tried his best and failed; Setsuko Hara as the seemingly obedient daughter, and so forth; the middle class home; the little bar around the corner from the office. It's all there and all as familiar as the nail's level view -- a bent-down nail, because the nail that sticks up gets hammered down.We're told that Ozu is very Japanese and I wouldn't understand, but I find his world very familiar, even if everyone speaks Japanese. Growing up, I didn't understand Yiddish -- I still don't -- but my parents and uncles and aunts did and held conversation in it when they didn't want us to understand. Sometimes the discussions would escalate to shouting, and when I would ask what was going on, I would be told "You wouldn't understand." So that's what Ozu seems like to me: the same people, the same problems, the same language so I wouldn't understand -- but with subtitles. With the same cast, just like my family. As Wayne said to Howard Hawks on another occasion, this time, can I play the drunk?

princebansal1982 This is my fifth Ozu film. And as I watch more of his movies my respect for his genius keeps on growing. He is more avant-garde than any other film maker I have seen.While others use wars as backdrop to create a more touching drama, wars just find a small reference in his films even if his characters have lived through them. While other use death as a dramatic pivot for the whole movie, Ozu skips it altogether. People do die in his films, but they do it off screen. There are no famous last dialogs about life or last moments.But despite these things or maybe because of these things, his movies are more poignant and touching than any other I have seen. I don't really cry while watching his movies. Instead they leave me in a strange tranquil state of mind, wistfully smiling.Another thing to note is that while his movies reveal more about Japanese culture than any other movies I have seen, at the same time they are very universal.If you haven't seen any movie by Yasujiro Ozu, I recommend starting with Tokyo Story or Good Morning. This one seems much longer as it takes some time to start and is devoid of humor. This is not meant as a criticism, Tokyo Twilight is still an amazing experience. But I think an average viewer should start with something else.

Andres Salama Tokyo in the mid 1950s. In this stereotypical women's picture, a single, middle aged man (Chishu Ryu, an Ozu regular), tries against all odds to raise his two grown troubled daughters. One (the great Setsuko Hara, another Ozu regular) is a single mother who has left her husband and return to his father's home. The younger daughter is even more troubled, is surrounded by bad companies, and has become pregnant by her no good boyfriend. Soon, the two sisters find in a mahjong joint their long lost mother, who seems curiously unmoved at learning that her son has died years ago in a climbing accident. The sloppy plot hurts the movie a lot (only in bad melodramas, one of the characters commits suicide by throwing herself under a train, but doesn't die until she tells her story). To its credit, though, this film tackles the issue of abortion decades before western films did, but this is still minor Ozu, somewhat moving, but done in by its unnecessary melodrama and its barely believable plot points. There are many movies Ozu made during this era - from Tokyo Story, Floating Weeds, Early Summer, Late Spring, Good Morning, End of Summer, etc., that are better than this. Still, worth seeing if you are not expecting a masterpiece.

cervus35 I regret to say this, but even the brilliant Ozu, even the mature Ozu, had off-days. Ozu created many masterpieces, but this film is far less. The disasters come so fast, their development is so thin, the characters are so weakly developed and the coincidence upon which the plot turns is so great that this movie falls way below Tokyo Story, Late Spring, Equinox Flower or An Autumn Afternoon. If this is a masterpiece, what are those films?All the disasters of this family are pushed onto the screen in too short a time -- the pregnancy, the abandonment by the mother, Setsuko's breakup with her own husband. The main weakness, I think, is the lack of development of the wife who deserted Ryu. Why did she leave? The coincidence that the daughter and her friends frequent a mah-jongg parlor which turns out to be owned by the long-gone mother -- coincidences like that happen in real life, but in movies they are much too convenient.Long live Ozu! But not "Tokyo Twilight."