Naruse virtually skirted the demands made by the censorious militarism of 1939 Japan in favor of this quiet drama of a family's struggle to make ends meet under Depression conditions. Mr. Ishimura is a factory worker and father of nine. He has trouble enough supporting his family, but when his oldest son Kiichi announces his desire to "take five years off" to go to school, family tensions rise to the surface and become unbearable. John Gillett notes the film's "fine feeling for cluttered interiors and family togetherness," and Audie Bock calls it "one of the best films from Japan in this era.... The greatest problem for film directors at this time was censorship, which meant pre-censorship at the screenplay stage. Naruse complies with the redoubled emphasis on filial piety required by the militarists...(but his) backhanded criticism of the militarists is also apparent in the dream one boy has of becoming a soldier, only because soldiers are well fed."