Set in Heian era (11th century) Japan, this is one of Mizoguchi's most probing and rigorously worked period pieces. Two children are kidnapped and sold into slavery while their mother withers away on distant Sado Island. The son escapes, assumes his rightful post as a provincial governor, and then resigns to find his abandoned mother. As in other Mizoguchis, the story is cast in epic form-epic in its concern with man as he acts outwardly, involved in an enterprise or quest, but ironic in that the quest obeys historical inevitability. This distanced determinism vies with the direct engagement of the characters to deliver a richness of dramatic expression unusual in its nuance. The extraordinary period reconstruction and powerful expressionistic imagery further the cumulative power of Sansho's tragic awareness. Richard Griffith stated, "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."