Terugiku has been forced into the life of a geisha in order to support her family in place of her drunkard father. She falls in love with Yoshio, the son of an older geisha, and attempts to save him from the rough crowd he has taken up with seemingly out of shame for his mother's profession. "A sharp, knowing analysis of the social and family vortex which traps women within the geisha world... Extraordinarily decorative and well-crafted in the interior scenes of geisha life, with an open, lyrical episode in a seaside town to which the lovers temporarily escape. Deeply felt performances..." (John Gillett, British Film Institute). "Naruse takes two genres, the long-suffering mother film and the lovers-who-must-separate film, and casts them in a new world-that of low-ranking geisha on the outskirts of the city-to give them a freshness and authenticity heretofore unknown. His characterizations and atmospheric touches, such as the raucous geisha party, were drawn from his own study of the lives of geisha living near the Kamata Studios..." (Audie Bock)