Kobe Chan
Department of Asian and International Studies
City University of Hong Kong

 

Apart from being recognized as one of the most powerful media, film, especially social realistic film does have its social function to reflect the reality.  Produced sixty years later after the release of Tokyo Story, the portrayed families in the two films, Tokyo Story (1953) and Tokyo Family (2013) are very much alike in terms of family structure and relationship.

Despite the difference in socio-economic background of the two families described in films that the family in Tokyo Story (1953) faces uprising economic trend under the backdrop of urbanization and industrialization and that the family in Tokyo Family (2013) lives under the current of globalization and prolonged economic recession, it is found that the parent-child relationship is being torn apart by the stressful city life.  Yet, traditional values such as filial piety is still there to tie up the family bonds.    

Since filial piety is the core value in Chinese Confucianism and Japan has been influenced by it since the 6th century, this paper thus employs Chinese Confucianism to investigate the family relationship portrayed in Tokyo Story (1953) and Tokyo Family (2013).  It is expected to provide an account of the underlying value of Japanese family as well as to explore the cultural value of Japanese people across time.