Directed by Kenji Mizoguchi (溝口健二)
Written by Kōgo Noda (野田高梧) and Kaneto Shindō (新藤兼人)
Cinematography by Toshio Ubukata (生方敏夫)
Music by Takaaki Asai (浅井挙曄)
Starring:
Kinuyo Tanaka (田中絹代), Michiko Kuwano (桑野通子), Toyo Takahashi (高橋豊子), Eiko Uchimura (内村栄子), Mitsuko Miura (三浦光子), Yōko Benisawa (紅沢葉子), Shin Tokudaiji (徳大寺伸), Kappei Matsumoto (松本克平), Kinuko Wakamizu (若水絹子), Akiko Kazami (風見章子), Shin'yō Nara (奈良真養), Toshinosuke Nagao (長尾敏之助), Katsumi Kubota (久保田勝巳), Toshiko Kōno/Kuniko Igawa (河野敏子/井川邦子), Shirō Ōsaka (大坂志郎)
Synopsis:
A socially committed film about the feudal state of many Japanese women in 1946. Hiroko Hosokawa, a female lawyer, defends Mrs. Asakura, who suffocated her child in her grief after her husband died penniless following an industrial accident. The prosecutor is Hiroko's sister's husband Kono, who also sent Hiroko's fiance, Yamaoka, to jail for his liberal views during the war. Yamaoka has just been freed, but is seriously ill from his time in prison.
David Owens of the Japan Society:
One year after the war ended, Mizoguchi's Japanese military overseers were replaced by American ones. Suspicious of films that might rekindle enthusiasm for feudal or militarist values, they encouraged themes that would illustrate democracy in action. Women were to be given special prominence in building a newly democratic Japan. Mizoguchi, who in many of his pre-war films had been obsessed with the theme of women victimized by society, embraced the new directives wholeheartedly.