is a 1955 black and white Japanese film

Cinema of Japan

The has a history that spans more than 100 years. Japan has one of the oldest and largest film industries in the world – as of 2009 the fourth largest by number of feature films produced. Movies have been produced in Japan since 1897, when the first foreign cameramen arrived...

 directed by Tomu Uchida

Tomu Uchida

was a Japanese film director. Tomu Uchida, whose name translates to “spit out dreams” is considered one of the less well known masters of Japanese cinema in the West, whose films are rarely screened and not widely available on DVD...

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Cast

• Rentaro Mikuni as Shonosuke Ihura
• Yumeji Tsukioka as Nobuko Shiga
• Mie Kitahara as Tamiko (Nobuko's daughter-in-law)
• Jûkichi Uno as Tetsutaro Komatsu
• Nobuo Kaneko as Junjiro (Tamiko's brother)

Plot

With American domination of Japan foremost in the minds of many Japanese citizens, Uchida uses a stinging family drama as a metaphor for the state of post-war Japan. Amidst endless construction and aircraft noise, a family whose father died in the war slowly disintegrates, as the daughter and stepmother juggle for position in a country whose future was uncertain.