"Based on the popular novel by Fumiko Hayashi, Mikio Naruse's most highly acclaimed postwar film captures the extraordinarily determined spirit of an ordinary Japanese girl. The actress who has been Naruse's most eloquent medium, starring in 17 of his films, Hideko Takamine, plays Yukiko, a young woman who finds the romance of her life working as a secretary at the front in Southeast Asia during the Pacific War. For her postwar Japan becomes the real struggle, and the wartime an irretrievable dream. Her married lover strings her along for years, while she finds herself ever more degraded, providing for herself in any way she can and attempting to fend off relatives who try to live off her. The ending of the film, however, provides a bitter twist of fate through which she finally gets what she wants." --Audie Bock