The essence of the Hero’s journey is the valuable gift that the protagonist brings back for the rest of us. While the hero often has astonishing experiences—think of Odysseus meeting the Sirens and the Cyclops—such events aren’t required as we see in  Yasuyuki Kubota’s “Old Man and Tokyo.”  The old man in this movie wins no astonishing victories nor has any memorable encounters. And yet we come away wiser for having met this Everyman, brilliantly played by Atsushi Kato. The film was a finalist in the 2019 FiLMiC Pro Worldwide Mobile Film Festival.

The editors of MobileMovieMaking have chosen “Old Man and Tokyo” as the Mobile Movie of the Week.