Takao Yanai

Shuhei Horikawa, a poor schoolteacher, struggles to raise his son Ryohei by himself, despite neither money nor prospects.

A woman brings her injured daughter to the hospital, only to realize that the doctor is the estranged father of her child.

Machiko Ujiie and Haruki Atomiya first meet and fall in love on Ginza’s Sukiyabashi Bridge during the Great Tokyo Air Raid in March 1945. Machiko and Haruki pledge to meet again at the bridge in six months but part without asking each other’s names.

This period film is inspired by one of the most notorious scandals to have taken place in Edo-period Japan. The heroine, Ejima, was a lady of the Ooku, the harem of Edo Castle in which the Shogun’s mother, wife and concubines resided, forbidden from contact with any other man except in the presence of the Shogun. The institution played a key role in the Byzantine world of Japanese court politics during the Edo era. In 1714, Lady Ejima was sent to pay her respects at a Buddhist temple in the city, and chose to pay an unauthorised visit to the kabuki theatre – a violation of protocol that was to have tragic consequences.

A 1959 Yoshiaki Bansho adaptation of an Osaragi Jiro story.

Machiko and Haruki’s drama continues. Machiko is not allowed to see Haruki. They finally meet again, but Haruki departs to Europe.