AllMovie

The setting is postwar Japan in this standard melodrama from director Yoshishige Yoshida. Shinko (Mariko Okada) is a young teen living in Akitsu when she meets Shusaku (Hiroyuki Nagato). He is a student who comes to Akitsu just before the end of the war to try to regain his health, and Shinko helps take care of him. The couple fall in love, but when they both hear that Japan has surrendered, they attempt suicide together and fail. The two lovers separate as Shusaku leaves town in the aftermath of their failed attempt, then fate tragically intervenes nearly two decades later.