In Depression-era Tokyo, the life of a single mother and her young son are disrupted by the return of her ex-husband, who fathered the child and walked out on her years earlier.
An aging geisha, whose angry teenage son is ashamed of her profession, works alongside a young geisha, resentful of her family for forcing her into a life of ignominy.
Mikio Naruse’s final silent film is a gloriously rich portrait of a waitress, Sugiko, whose life, despite a host of male admirers and even some intrigued movie talent scouts, ends up taking a suffocatingly domestic turn after a wealthy businessman accidentally hits her with his car.
