A Hen in the Wind

In the uncertain months after the war, Tokiko lives with her young son Hiroshi in a shabby lodging house in Tokyo, anxiously waiting for her husband Shuichi to return from military service. Struggling to make ends meet on her meagre income as a seamstress, she sells her last possessions as prices rise and money becomes increasingly scarce.

When Hiroshi suddenly falls seriously ill and is hospitalised, Tokiko is faced with an impossible choice. With no money left, she turns to a brothel and spends a single night working as a prostitute to pay her son’s medical bills.

A few weeks later, Shuichi returns, and Tokiko refuses to hide what happened. Her confession shatters the fragile happiness of their reunion. Although Shuichi rationally understands that she acted out of desperation, his resentment and jealousy, as well as his wounded sense of masculinity, gradually eat away at him. He becomes obsessed with the idea that she has been “tainted”, even as encounters with other women force him to confront the hypocrisy and economic hardship underlying prostitution.