Wife! Be Like a Rose!

Simple story is ingeniously told. Has honest human values and is completely without hokum.

The complicated, innovative style poses metaphysical questions to match the moral issue -- Naruse's highly angled compositions and oddly accented editing constantly undermine his characters' place in the world.

It has a distressing habit of stumbling over the threshold of each new scene; its fadeouts and dissolves are awkwardly amateur. Yet it has a certain sturdy honesty in the resolution of its problem and the performances are expert.

Miss Chiba, Okawa and Miss Hanabusa turn in performances that are among the finest seen on the Japanese talking screen.