It's the waterfront in Osaka, ten years after the Meiji Restoration. Some people have made fortunes in new technologies like petroleum and steam boats. Now, however, some people are losing fortunes. The individuals will survive, but will they lead decent lives, or will they go the way of the samurai, who were trying their last rebellion against the Tokyo government at this time?
That's the background of this movie, and we are confronted with individual tragedies and triumphs, women who waited too long to say yes, heads of long established trading houses who said no once too often.... and the relationship of that background to the individuals and the changing economy of Japan seems obscure: so obscure that this movie wobbles uncertainly from drama to comedy and over to tragedy, while everyone goes around with a stiff upper lip, spouting dialogue in the Osaka dialect.
I suppose it's the Japanese equivalent of the Manchester school of drama, and that would explain who my sources call it more comic than tragic I'm afraid I have little choice but to shrug my shoulders and admit that I don't get it, if there is anything to get.
