Hideko Takamine is the preeminent star of the Japanese melodrama, and a film like The Mistress shows us why. As Otama, a young woman who, in order to support her father, is trapped into becoming the mistress of a middle-aged pawnbroker, she captures the essence of a caged bird. Otama is a thinker and a watcher, capable of looking inward at herself and outward at her situation at the same time. Thus, when she falls in love with a young student who passes by her house every day, she can both indulge and deny herself that love. "Thinking won't change things," Otama is frequently told; but in this essentially feminist view of history, during a period of great transformations-the 1880s-Otama is witness to every manner of male venality and female suffering in the guise of change.