"By the 1960s...largely due to the decline of the old bourgeoisie after 1945, (the poor girl/rich boy) theme was suddenly behind the times, and Kinoshita's The Bitter Spirit/Immortal Love, set in the 1930s, was its last masterpiece" (Tadao Sato, Currents in Japanese Cinema). In Kinoshita's hands, the classic subject takes on a profound, even modern resonance as he invests melodrama with sharp insights into the economics of the human condition and compassion for woman's place within this structure. The 28-year saga takes place in a rural locale in the shadow of Mount Aso. Sadako (Hideko Takamine), a young village woman awaiting the return of her fiancé, is raped by the son of a local landowner and then practically sold to the rich family by her heavy-hearted father. She never stops resenting her husband (played by Tatsuyo Nakadai), but she determines that her children shall escape his feudalistic household.