Setsuko Hara delivers a superb performance as Yukie Yagihara, a prominent professor's daughter who becomes enlightened to the hypocritical nature of politics after her lover (Susumu Fujita), a leftist activist, is jailed and later executed for spying. Set in a militaristic pre-World War II Japan, director Akira Kurosawa's powerful drama about self-discovery also stars Denjirô Ôkôchi as Yukie's father.