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You can watch Tokyo Story (1953) for free on Kanopy.

The elderly Shukishi and his wife, Tomi, take the long journey from their small seaside village to visit their adult children in Tokyo. Their elder son, Koichi, a doctor, and their daughter, Shige, a hairdresser, don't have much time to spend with their aged parents, and so it falls to Noriko, the widow of their younger son who was killed in the war, to keep her in-laws company.

Postwar Japan hums with a quiet, heartbreaking tension as aging parents navigate the emotional distance created by their busy, urbanized children. This slow-burning portrait of familial neglect finds its soul in the gentle kindness of a widowed relative who shows up when blood relatives won't.

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