Lil’ Tokyo Story

2016 • Directed by

Matthew Lax

A shot-for-shot reimagining of the opening credits and climax of Yasujirō Ozu’s Tokyo Story (1953). Re-setting the scene in Los Angeles and recasting Noriko and Kyoko with two Japanese actors performing in drag, the film interrogates notions of language and cultural memory in split screen Japanese and English versions (with literal translations of the original dialogue into English subtitles and literal translations of the English subtitles from the Criterion version back into Japanese).