"Three generations of illegitimate women prove to succeed, unfazed by war, conventional morality, poverty, or weak, exploitative men" --Audie Bock. Set during the Forties and spanning the difficult postwar reconstruction period, The Insect Woman follows the trail of a woman who survives by primordial instinct, impervious to all direction or restraint imposed from without. Tome, the illegitimate daughter of an impoverished rural woman, migrates to the city and takes up a life of prostitution. She bears a daughter herself, and, determined to provide for her, sets up her own house of prostitution, eventually becoming a tyrannical madam. From early shots of her innocently incestuous relationship with her retarded stepfather to later scenes of her in bed with a lover while the Emperor is announcing Japan's defeat over the radio, Imamura establishes Tome as a woman who survives an oppressive patriarchy with "insect-like" values that are irrelevant to modern notions of intelligence, beauty or nobility. Sachiko Hidara gives an extraordinary performance as Tome.