"Office worker and family man Shinji Okajima is dismissed from his job with an insurance company when he stands up for one of his colleagues in a trifling dispute. He and his family are forced to economize while he is unemployed and searching for work. His luck changes when he happens to meet his old high school teacher, who is now managing a restaurant. Okajima takes a job there and is soon helping to build a thriving business. "This charming social comedy of the sort Ozu made frequently in the 1930s features the same conflicts between home and workplace that were gradually narrowed and isolated in Ozu's late films. Beneath the comedic shenanigans lay a serious concern for the health, well-being and freedom of the ordinary working man. The film is very nicely framed by two of Ozu's favorite set pieces: incorrigible schoolboys misbehave in the opening flashback and then, at the end of the picture, as responsible adults, they enjoy a reunion party with their beloved teacher. "Peter Handke used a very funny and poignant scene in which Okajima and his family play a hand-clapping game in his film The Left-Handed Woman." David Owens, Japan Society