On the outskirts of Tokyo, a family of Mitsu Nakahara lives in one of the small huts surrounded by barracks and tin pens. Mitsu's husband died in the war, and she was left alone with four children and works as a day laborer. The eldest daughter Haruko, who is already nineteen years old, works in a clothing store, the second daughter Natsuko works in a restaurant, a schoolboy Akio is studying carpentry, and even the youngest Fuyuko helps her mother by working as a nanny in a neighboring house. Nearby lives a widowed electrician Tokuji Yamada with two boys - Norio and Tatsuo. He has a widowed daughter, Sakiko, who, along with a small child, ran away from home, as she is going through hard times. At Haruko's suggestion, Mitsu and Tokuji get married, and it would seem that happiness smiles on their new family, but it turned out to be short-lived…

The phantom thief, known as the "Actor Kid", who was creating a stir in the Daimyo's mansion, especially in the inner chambers, was called Inaba Goutaro. He was the adopted son of a samurai, Inaba Buemon. An incident occurred where his foster father collided with the palanquin of the lord's concubine. In the subsequent altercation, Goutaro killed one of the attendants. Taking responsibility for the act, his foster father committed seppuku, and Goutaro was hunted down. Facing death, his foster father revealed to Goutaro that after the death of his biological father, Goutaro's real mother and his younger brother were forcibly made to serve a lord. This revelation ignited Goutaro's determination to infiltrate the Daimyo's mansion to meet his birth mother.

Isshin Tasuke, a friend of Ōkubo Hikozōemon, the esteemed public arbitrator of the realm, saved the maid Onatsu from punishment after she accidentally broke a plate gifted by Lord Ieyasu. Tired of the strict samurai service, Tasuke moved to the Genbei tenements and opened a fish shop. This tenement housed various characters, including the landlord's daughter Osen who had a crush on Tasuke, the midwife Okan, the blind masseur Oyone and her husband, the carpenter-loving couple Yoshigorō and Ohama, the rōnin Takeuchi Yogoemon, and the siblings Ochika and Shin'nosuke who cared for their sick mother.

In the mid-Tokugawa period, a conflict arose over the "Seiryū Himon," a secret document left by the former shogun Iesai, bequeathing the eighth shogunate to young Lord Manguro of Owari domain. This document became the center of a struggle between the current shogun, Yoshimune, and Manguro. Iida Daisuke, a member of the shogunate's secret intelligence group, the Kurokuwa Group, stole the document from Owari but was killed by Manguro's men. The document then fell into the hands of Yozakura Ogin, who had pledged her life to Daisuke.

Hiroo Ikeda movie

Osen, a dance teacher who hates men, refuses to become the concubine of a rich merchant, but falls in love with the thief Sojiro, unaware that he is avenging the death of his brother. Jinzo, who wants to win over a rich merchant, pours boiling water on One's face...

Film directed by Tadashi Ashihara

1954 Japanese movie