一个关于竞争与自我牺牲的爱情故事，发生于明治末期。三弦琴艺人鹤八与民谣歌家鹤次郎是一个传统音乐组合。不过他们常常争吵。他们分开了，鹤次郎却无法靠自己兴旺。他们就又复合了，但当鹤次郎发现鹤八陷入一场恋爱之中时，便故意与她争执到分崩离析的地步，好让她安心去结婚。

Father of nine children cannot find a job. Despite their aspirations, the children are encouraged by both parents to hold down menial jobs and contribute to the family expenses. Eventually ...@

在日本甲府的偏僻山村，宁静的乡间小道上行驶着一辆又老又旧的巴士。司机园田（藤原鶏太 饰）和美丽的女售票员阿驹（高峰秀子 饰）每日起早贪黑，迎来送往去向各处的客人。虽则努力多多，但是收入一向微薄，难见起色。迫于生计，公司独辟蹊径，决定打造一条专门面向各地游客的旅游线路。园田和阿驹为这个设想所触动，二人开始着手准备起来。适逢自称小说家的井川（夏川大二郎 饰）来此游览当地名胜，他们于是拜托井川，撰写游览所用的演讲稿……
本片根据井伏鱒二的短篇小说《おこまさん》改编，是导演成濑巳喜男和女演员高峰秀子首次合作的作品。

A tale of jealousy

1966 film by Mikio Naruse

名優・笠智衆が主演した成瀬巳喜男監督作品。正月興行らしい豪華キャストで、家族制度における妻の立場を問う。家庭の中で唯一の他人ともいうべき長男の未亡人が、義理の両親を理解するというラストに、小津の「東京物語」へのオマージュが感じられて微笑ましい。

1953 film by Mikio Naruse

1960 film by Mikio Naruse

自然主義文学の代表的作家・徳田秋声の同名小説を水木洋子が脚色し、成瀬巳喜男が演出した作品。生まれつき気性が激しく、そのくせ情にほだされやすい女が、次々と男に捨てられながらも生きていく姿を、距離をおいて凝視する。強い女を描くことには定評のある成瀬監督だが、これほど荒々しく終始感情をむき出しにするヒロインは珍しい。成瀬との絶妙のコンビを誇る主演の高峰秀子は、その意志の強さを具現したような肉体で、やや陰影を欠く主人公をはじけ飛ばすように演じ、他作品でのきめ細かな名演とは違った味わいを残す。路地裏の物売りの声や拍子木を打つ音など、音声の表情も実に豊かである。

In his review of Feminine Melancholy in Kinema Junpo, critic Mizumachi Seiji praises Irie's performance as the best of her talkie career. However, he is very critical of the film itself, which he sees as a typical story of a woman in an unhappy marriage. He is not sympathetic toward the heroine's patient suffering and describes the nagging mother-in-law as a "hackneyed theme." Naruse's detailed "documentation" of Hiroko's role in the household is dismissed as a "manneristic obsession," and Mizumachi suggests that the director is hiding behind "the shadow of the materials." Most severely, he criticizes Naruse for "abandoning his authority as an auteur" by resorting to "shinpa-tragedy," which is seen as a capitulation to a form that has "wielded a powerful hold over the imagination of the masses." Although Mizumachi notes that Naruse has probed into "the deepest recess of the female psyche," he doesn't recognize this as the film's achievement, perhaps because he is looking for something else from the director. His review reveals the difficulties Naruse faced in maintaining his "auteur status" while moving with the tides of popular culture. For Mizumachi, the character of Yoko is the most typical Naruse heroine, perhaps because she is dragged down by her delinquent lover; however, in retrospect, it is evident that Hiroko's tenacious survival of adverse circumstances looks forward to Naruse's postwar heroines.

The Kinema Junpo critics were, of course, mistaken to think that Naruse had abandoned his emphasis on women. His next film, Sincerity, features two strong female characters, played by Irie Takako and Murase Sachiko, each of whom have a daughter. The girls are schoolmates, but one (Nobuko) is from a middle-class home and the other (Tomiko) is from a poor family. Tomiko's mother Tsutako (Irie) is a single mother who works from home as a seamstress, while Nobuko's mother lives in an elegant home with her husband, Kei. Eventually, it is revealed that Kei had a romantic relationship with Tsutako, and may be Tomiko's father as well, but he is conscripted shortly after this revelation and goes off to war.
This is very much a home front film, in which the women are involved in supporting activities, and the whole town cheers on the new recruits. As Kei is a banker, he is conscripted as an officer. He is introduced brandishing a magnificent sword, indicating his readiness for his call-up, for which everyone congratulates him when it comes. The wartime context is little more than a backdrop to the story of paternity and former love. The complex emotions among the women are conveyed through cutting on eye movements and eye lines, and through the use of the pastoral location.

Kimiko, a Tokyo white-collar working girl, lives with her serious, intellectual, haiku-writing mother. Kimiko seeks to marry her boyfriend but needs her absent father to act as the go-between and negotiate the marriage. Kimiko travels and finds her father living with a second family.

插話式的故事，講述的是一對中年夫婦日久生厭的故事。

莫非上苍的不公，女人应是一生多舛，一生孤单？
昭和十二年春，年轻美丽的信子（高峰秀子 饰）与本町材木问屋的长男幸一（宝田明 饰）结婚。婚后不久，夫家家道衰落，公公投资失败后与艺妓相约自杀。翌年，中日战争爆发，武汉三镇陷落。与此同时信子产下一子，名唤功平。他们渺小的幸福并未持续太久，随着太平洋战争的扩大，幸一应召入伍，一去不归。
信子与婆婆（贺原夏子 饰）辛苦支撑这个小家庭，期间多得丈夫生前的好友秋本（仲代达矢 饰）的帮助，信子也渐渐爱上这个令他可以依靠的男人。但生活似乎有意为难这可怜的女人，幸福总是与她擦肩而过……

成濑在1955年的《浮云》之后便十分彻底的描绘容易受男性牵制的被动女性。他想要拍摄更坚强一些的女人。这部电影被认为是展示了完全僵化的家庭系统。

在观光巴士担任礼仪小姐的清子（高峰秀子 饰）美丽善良，她出生于一个贫苦的家庭。多年来母亲含辛茹苦将兄妹四人拉扯大，两个姐姐如今都已结婚。大姐缝子俨然扮演着父亲的角色，她只手遮天，独断地安排着弟妹们的爱情和人生，不容置喙。二姐光子新近丧夫，曾经最让她信赖的丈夫竟然在外还有情人。缝子为了帮自家买卖广拓财路，将经营面包房的纲吉介绍给清子，清子讨厌厚颜无耻的纲吉，更反感姐姐的市侩功利。面对在泥潭中自感沉沦或者无力挣扎的一家人，她能做些什么呢？也许只有想尽办法逃离，然而一根叫做亲情的线依然将其拉得紧紧，难以逃脱……

1951 film by Mikio Naruse

With delicate, unobtrusive strokes, Naruse evokes both the humor and bitterness of his characters’ dilemmas, in this bleak, compelling poignant portrait of a quartet of aging geishas contemplating their troubles with men and money.

A man is involved in a fatal car accident, and though he is blameless, his company transfers him to a remote branch in a small town. Before he leaves, he gives the man's widow a large sum of money that she uses to move back to her hometown.

An ingratiating bride develops warm ties to her father-in-law while her cold husband blithely slights her for another woman.