Kinuyo Tanaka had one of her best roles of the 1950s in this Naruse film showing here for the first time. It is a classic study of a Ginza bar hostess, treated with a subtle emotional quality and nuance that were typical of both Naruse and Tanaka. Approaching middle age and struggling to support both a son and an ex-husband, the hostess attempts to hook up with a rich patron but repulses his sexual advances; a dream of escape with a young man who talks poetry similarly ends in nothing. She returns to the struggle. Naruse biographer Audie Bock notes that the film has the "full flavor of Naruse's trapped characters" and was based on his own observations of Ginza life.