Nobuko Otowa brings her daughter by Keiji Sada to Toshiko Yabuki, his wife. She raises the girl as her own daughter and divorces Sada. She also begins a long-term affair with Shin Saburi, the husband of her cousin, Yoshie Minami, confident that no one knows. Miss Minami does know, and her marriage becomes an empty shell, as she runs around with other men.
It's a glossy soap opera, like the ones that Ross Hunter produced and Douglas Sirk directed in the 1950s, with a Japanese twist. Director Heinosuke Gosho fills the screen with fine clothes and goods. Early on, Miss Minami looks at a Joseon vase her husband owns and asks him to teach her about such things. He replies that it's just something he likes, not something one learns about. Yet his affair with Miss Yabuki is kicked off when she is visiting and she admires it in front of him.
The movie has a lot of talk, but what is notable about it are the long takes on the actors' faces, revealing their thoughts. This sort of suffering-in-mink soap opera is not to my taste, but it seems very well done; doubtless that is because the characters are Japanese, so I feel their alien manner of expressing their emotions more interesting than Westerners'.
