A bar hostess about to turn 30 faces an uncertain future, and considers how best to deal with her financial difficulties. To maintain her independence, she will either have to raise enough money to open a bar of her own or persuade one of the patrons to marry her. Drama, starring Hideko Takamine and Masayuki Mori. In Japanese.
Following the career of an ageing bar hostess as she struggles to stay out of debt in 1950s Tokyo, this moving film from director Mikio Naruse ranks among his best. A contemporary of Ozu, Naruse was always interested in women and work; here the two are elegantly combined in Hideko Takamine's graceful heroine Keiko, a widowed hostess in her 30s facing a stark choice between a marriage of convenience or opening her own bar. Trapped in a male-dominated system and burdened by financial necessity, Keiko's plight captures the dead-end decadence of the red-light district and the price tag that comes with it. Full of intimate intensity and stark pessimism, this is a heartbreaking drama from a Japanese director whose greatness has rarely been acknowledged on these shores.
| role | name |
|---|---|
| Keiko Yashiro | Hideko Takamine |
| Matsukichi Sekine | Daisuke Kato |
| Nobuhiko Fujisaki | Masayuki Mori |
| Junko Inchihashi | Reiko Dan |
| Kenichi Komatsu | Tatsuya Nakadai |
| Goda | Ganjiro Nakamura |
| Minobe | Eitaro Ozawa |
| Yuri | Keiko Awaji |
| role | name |
|---|---|
| Director | Mikio Naruse |
