It's the Meiji era! With the shogunate gone -- even though the women still sing about it while sewing -- and Japan unified under the Emperor, great things are in store for Japan. For the villagers in a small town, though, things are tough. Being a monk is not a good profession any more. Schoolkids form gangs to battle gangs from other schools. A budding young woman faces the choice of becoming a concubine or a prostitute, despite her brother's protest.
Japan's New Wave was in the process of forming and screaming about everything that mature film makers like Mizoguchi and Kurosawa were doing, seemingly unaware the old guard was using these films to comment on on current conditions. Mean Heinosuke Gosho, who had been making features for 35 years at this point, made this one, just as he had made shomin-gekkim in the 1930s. His characters live and suffer and sometimes grow. And sometimes they disappear into the another world, never to be seen again.
