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.
The secret to appreciating Ozu is to live long enough to feel the years start going by faster and faster, and see everyone you know grow decades older, and watch everything you've ever known and loved steamrolled by change.
