"tokyo story" is often admired as a work that achieves great emotional effect while avoiding melodrama. critic wally hammond stated that "the way ozu builds up emotional empathy for a sense of disappointment in its various characters is where his mastery lies." roger ebert wrote that the work "lacks sentimental triggers and contrived emotion; it looks away from moments a lesser movie would have exploited. it doesn't want to force our emotions, but to share its understanding." in "the village voice", eric hynes argued that "time itself is [ozu]'s most potent weapon. protracted sequences make you impatient for forward motion, but then, in an instant, you’re left to mourn beauties hastened away." in 2010, david thomson rhetorically asked whether any other family drama in cinematic history was more moving than "tokyo story". ebert called ozu "universal", reported having never heard more weeping in an audience than during its showing, and later stated that the work "ennobles the cinema. it says, yes, a movie can help us make small steps against our imperfections."