Although written with great insight by Kogo Noda and filmed with painterly delicacy by Asakazu Nakai, the stamp of the great Yasujiro Ozu is evident throughout this intricate domestic drama, which proved to be the director's penultimate film.
What's so intriguing is the manner in which Ozu blends the physical features of Japan on the cusp of modernity and economic recovery with the traditional approach to family life, as depression-hit brewer Ganjiro Nakamura consents to the arranged marriages of his daughter and widowed daughter-in-law, while offending their sensibilities by devoting so much attention to his former mistress.