This is Japanese melo-dramatist director Yoji Yamada's ode to 1930s film production during the transition from silent film to talkies (of which Japan was quite late to adopt this feature). Many from that time are fictionalized including Chaplin (very briefly) but mostly the great Yasujiro Ozu, who's name is changed to Yasujiro Ogata (played by Ittoku Kishibe). With many loose associations we can see the rise of a young star Koharu Tanaka (played by Narimi Arimori) for the big New Year release entitled Floating Weeds (you may recall the 34' Ozu film was titled A Story of Floating Weeds and his remake in 59' was Floating Weeds). I suspect certain legality issues must have risen with the poetic licensing of these names and characters and hence the plot is a shade disjointed. A few times I suspect that Koharu Tanaka was possibly portraying a supposed Setsuko Hara but a definite link did not materialize with any historical accuracy. The ending is typical Yamada but even stretches beyond his own dramatic excess, quite possibly to infuse the very era he was attempting to represent. I was quite keen to watch this but it did drag a bit and seemed less cohesive that his other films.  out of    

Gary W. Tooze