Jinsei no onimotsu

Tatsuo Saitô and Mitsuko Yoshikawa have married off the third of three daughters. Feeling the expense and too much liquor, he worries about their future, with their nine-year-old son, Masao Hayama. They're not young and he anticipates twenty years before the boy is independent. When he suggests that an education is no guarantee of a good life anymore -- there's a worry that hasn't grown out of date! -- and suggests that they apprentice him to a good trade, she accuses him of not loving his son and leaves for her daughter's home with the boy.

Heinosuke Gosho's family comedy is a mild but heartfelt tempest in a teapot, with several pleasantly drawn battles of the sexes, good performances and even a nicely realized nightclub sequence in which Saitô encounters a couple of underlings out of his usual element. In sum total, it's a very pleasant if not particularly surprising effort.