Is filial piety diminishing in Japanese society? An examination of Tokyo Story (1953) and Tokyo Family (2013)

Suggested by Chie Nakane (1970), Confucianism is the backbone of Japanese culture and the core value of which is filial piety. Breakdown of family or dissolution of family is often heard in recent years. Scholars like Maeda (1982) and Reischauer (1977) attribute it to the erosion of traditional values which can be seen as the result of urbanization. In modernization/urbanization theory, people move to live and work in city and left only elderly to stay in rural area. The geographical distance widened the gap between generations, it had also affected the bonding and relationship between family members. The giant Japanese film master, Ozu Yasujiro made a film Tokyo Story in 1953 and the film shows the dissolution of family vividly. Yamada Yoji who is widely known as a socio-realistic filmmaker who depicts family under the backdrop of urbanization in the 2010s in Tokyo Family (2013). His film is regarded as a tribute to Ozu Yasujiro’s Tokyo Story (1953). Through a textual and contextual analysis on these two films, this paper aims to explore if the breakdown of family is necessarily caused by the change of traditional value and if filial piety is diminishing in Japanese society due to urbanization. Under auteur theory, it is found that the film directors are trying to put forth their vision about preservation of traditional values in the process of urbanization or modernization.