Apart from anything else, Tsuruhachi and Tsurujiro is a musical treat, as the story follows the turbulent partnership of a samisen player and a ballad singer during the Meiji era. Nicely atmospheric in its backstage scenes and views of the little towns, it is also one of the most subtly composed of Mikio Naruse’s 1930s work. Its main strength, though, lies in the witty and moving on-off relationship between the two main characters, played with much expressive feeling by the great Kazuo Hasegawa and Isuzu Yamada.