Not only a great classic of world cinema, but one of Mizoguchi's most probing and rigorously worked period pieces. Its source is a story by Ogai Mori, the great Meiji-period novelist, whose setting is Japan in the eleventh century. Two children are kidnapped and sold into slavery; the son escapes, assumes his rightful post as a provincial governor, deposes the cruel bailiff, then resigns in order to find his abandoned mother. Its packed narrative combines barbaric violence with a family story emphasizing loyalty and self-sacrifice. Particularly unforgettable are the kidnapping scenes on the beach, the flight through the forest, and the son's search for his mother on the seashore. "The haunting images create an atmosphere in which the movie comes perhaps as close as it can to the pity and terror of the classic Greek tragedy." --Richard Griffith