This is a quiet little melodrama from Mikio Naruse, but it scores points by taking the perspective of women, and by featuring Sumiko Mizukubo, who's like a ray of sunshine every time she's on the screen. She plays a geisha who seems to be carefree, but whose sad family life is eventually revealed. Meanwhile, her older friend (Mitsuko Yoshikawa) is struggling with getting older and losing the affection of her long time patron, as well as having a rebellious son who's skipping school to run around with the wrong crowd.
Both women are dealing with lazy men behaving badly in their family, and it's the main reason they continue to be geisha. The older woman wants to provide the money for her son's schooling and then stop, while the younger women works because her father claims over copious amounts of sake that "times are tough," and is presumably unemployed. The moment she stands up to him to try to protect her sister from being forced down the same path is probably the film's strongest. There is a sense of strength and perseverance here ("I won't let hardship defeat me") that is also stirring.
I liked the film for all of those reasons, but various issues prevented me from loving it. For one thing, the pacing was a little slow, even over just 60 minutes. Additionally, Naruse's various camera work, including those zoom shots into close-ups, seemed more cartoonish than effective here, and I say that despite having liked how he incorporated them in No Blood Relation (1932). Lastly, the plot connects the older geisha's son with the younger geisha romantically which leads to further melodrama, none of which was very satisfying, except perhaps the ending. All in all, not bad though.
