Customer Reviews

A HEN IN THE WIND Yasujiro Ozu (NTSC ALL REGION IMPORT) (Kaze no Naka no Mendori) Chishu Ryu, Kinuyo Tanaka, Shuji Sano, Chieko Murata

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Towards the end of World War 2 a young child becomes ill. The father is still away at war and the mother does not have enough money for medicine and a doctor. She does the only thing she can to get money and save her son's life and that is to become a prostitue for one night. Her husband finally returns home and, against the advice of her best friend, she eventually tells her husband what she did, expecting a compassionate response. His reaction is cold and brutal and frankly wrong. Even his friend at work tells him his wife did the only thing she could, but he doesn't listen. He even has more compassion for another young woman he meets who had been forced to become a prostitute than he has for his wife. Eventually there is a resolution to the husband's inner conflict and his wife's deep feeling of guilt.

This is a very well acted and, I believe, a realistic look at post war Japanese society. It is not quite an Ozu classic, but it comes close

At the end of the war, a woman waits for her husband to come home and her child gets sick. Her husband returns and finds out she had to do some disgraceful acts to keep the family going. He is not impressed. Ends well but is a bit mellodramic.