Ozo’s Tokyo Story Getting A New BFI Blu-Ray Release

Next month, BFI will launch there JAPAN 2020 Season, a major new season celebrating Japanese cinema. Among the classics will be Yasujirô Ozu’s Tokyo Story. The film is already available on the BFI Player in a small collection of Yasujirô Ozu films that will soon expanded to 25 films.

A constant fixture in critic’s polls, Tokyo Story is Yasujirô Ozu’s most enduring masterpiece and a beautifully nuanced exploration of filial duty, expectation and regret. From the simple tale of an elderly couple’s visit to their grown-up children in Tokyo, Ozu draws a compelling contrast between the measured dignity of age and the hurried insensitivity of a younger generation.

Also included on the release is Ozu’s incisive satire, Brothers and Sisters of the Toda Family (1941), which explores similar themes, as, following the death of her husband, Mrs Toda and her youngest daughter receive a frosty reception from the extended family.

Special features

• Re-mastered in 4K with an uncompressed monaural soundtrack
• An Introduction to Tokyo Story  (2020, 26 mins): Asian-cinema expert Tony Rayns provides an introduction to Ozu’s most acclaimed film
• Brothers and Sisters of the Toda Family (1941, 105 mins): following the death of her husband, Mrs Toda realises she has been left with sizeable debts and an extended family reluctant to support her
• Talking with Ozu (1993, 40 mins): a tribute to the legendary director featuring filmmakers Lindsay Anderson, Claire Denis, Hou Hsiao-hsien, Aki Kaurismäki, Stanley Kwan, Paul Schrader and Wim Wenders
• Furnival and Son (1948, 19 mins): recounts the difficult choice a recently demobbed serviceman has to make between an unexpected job offer elsewhere, and resuming his pre-war position as his father’s right-hand man in their small cutlery firm, Furnival and Son
• Image gallery
• ***FIRST PRESSING ONLY*** Fully illustrated booklet including an essay by Professor Joan Mellen, archival writing by John Gillett and Lindsay Anderson and a biography of Yasujirô Ozu by Tony Rayns

JAPAN | 1953 | 136 MINUTES | BLACK & WHITE | 1.33:1 | JAPANESE WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES

Yasujirô Ozu’s Tokyo Story, will be released on  Blu-ray from 15 June 2020.