Viewed on Streaming. Cinematography = four (4) stars; restoration = four (4) stars; subtitles = four (4) stars; sound = two (2) stars. Director Keisuke Kinoshita mounts a low-budgeted potboiler that looks at Japan's radical changes in cultural traditions following WWII. Extensive (and gratuitous) expository text precedes the opening scenes (never a good sign) combined with dubbed stock shots of political campaigning and violence that could cause the viewer to initially think (1) Japan is in the midst of a violent revolution (which, of course, it isn't),and (2) the film is a pseudo documentary (which is not the case either). Aside from padding, Kinoshita's intent seems to be to try to set the stage for a B-level soap opera about the impacts of changing times. This is an under-financed endeavor not that far removed from a glorified home movie. It is less than successful in many ways, but primarily it lacks creativity in its scenario (packed with repetition),acting (leading actress Youko Mochizuki just sobs her way through the film),and directing (prodding as well as energy deficient). The film could use some serious re-editing to cut back on overly long scenes and remove those that are repetitious (of which there are many). Most exteriors were shot without sound and left that way. The movie seems to be photographed in various shades of gray (not in black and white) which could be the result of intentional filtering, inferior film stock, aging, lack of restoration, or all of these factors. There are wear lines through out, and the sound track contains continuous static (or popping) with an occasional thumping sound (like somebody hit or dropped the microphone). Each actress and actor seems to wear the same costume through out the film (did they wear their own clothes?). Cinematography used an antiquated (even for Japan at the time) narrow-screen format. But there are some spectacular dolly (tracking) shots. Subtitles need an informed grammatical scrub to enable the viewer to read them and watch the film at the same time! (Currently it's next to impossible to do both in a single viewing). Not recommended. WILLIAM FLANIGAN, PhD.

It begins in a whirlwind of documentary footage about current Japan, about corruption and strife. We see flashbacks to Japan, just coming out of the War, dealing with poverty and hunger and teachers explaining that they were telling their students lies, passing on the lies they had been told and believed. Newspaper stories are shown. Among the headlines is one about a mother of two who committed suicide by jumping in front of a train.

Yûko Mochizuki is a serving woman at a resort in the Izu Peninsula. Her son and daughter visit her. The son wants her to sign documents so he can be adopted by a wealthy doctor; he is a top student, but he has no money, and so cannot afford to practice medicine. Her daughter, unknown to her, is being courted by her English teacher, a married man whose wife despises him, and whose daughter has been trained to hate him.

Ozu and Naruse wrote and directed serious movies about families struggling to survive and adapt in a changing Japan. Their families care about each other. Kinoshita, in this movie, says those are lies. Miss Mochizuki's family has fallen apart in a Japan where no one cares about anyone else. She is a kind, moral, silly woman, who gives good advice and is lied to at best, or knocked to the ground for it. Her daughter was raped by her cousin; now she hates all men and trusts no one. Her son has become an almost emotionless intellectual drudge, who shrugs his shoulders when told of some one making a stupid choice; they're adults, he says. They have to make their own decisions. He's going to survive in this new world.

Kinoshita's work after his wartime propaganda, is usually ameliorated by his dark sense of humor. There is no humor here. Instead, he has absorbed the techniques of both Italian Neo-Realism for his visual effects, and Film Noir's flashback structure to show character's motivation. It's a fine, angry, hateful story of people adrift in an uncaring world.