Minoru Takada and Takako Irie are lovers and in love. They want to get married, but he has not told his parents. Now they want him him in an arranged marriage to Chieko Takehisa. Irie tells Miss Takehisa he will refuse and heads home. There, though, he hears all the sensible reasons for the marriage. He doesn't tell them about Miss Irie. Instead, he agrees to the meeting, planning to reject her. However, he discovers that he likes Miss Takehisa a lot. He tells her about the affair. She is not shocked. She says that if he can let Miss Irie down easy, she will marry him. Yet, when he returns, he avoids his former lover.
Mikio Naruse's movie is a story about older customs and habits.... and men's indifference to the suffering of women. Miss Irie wears traditional Japanese garb, while Miss Takehisa is very modern. Miss Irie wants to be married to Takada, while Miss Takehisa would like it, but it's not the be-all of her life. And Takada is a suave, emotionally lazy user. It's a first-rate potboiler of the sort of movie that Naruse would develop into an art.
