“A fairly close remake of the 1934 silent film about a group of traveling players whose leader visits his illegitimate son in a remote island town. The remake gains enormously from the playing of Ganjiro Nakamura and Machiko Kyo, and the stunning color photography of the great Kazuo Miyagawa, here working with Ozu for the first and last time. Interesting, also, to note the small alterations made by Ozu in this version, strengthening the end and introducing a different flavor to the scenes of the troupe at work” (John Gillett). “From the sentimental detailing of the traveling players' lives, almost deliberately anachronistic in 1959, emerges deep nostalgia for the dying folk culture of old Japan” (Hong Kong Film Festival).