The only other cast member I can mention here is Toshirô Mifune becaue he is considered one of Japan's greatest actors of all time now.
Sometimes she is way younger, sometimes way older. She was around the age of 40 when this was made, but she plays herself really during all kinds of times in her character's life. This is definitely among her most known efforts now. Now lets take a look at this one we got here: The lead actress is Kinuyo Tanaka and she was at least as prolific as the man behind the camera. So yeah quite a pity he did not live longer, but still during his career he almost directed 100 movies and for many of these he was also in charge of the screenplay. Besides Mizoguchi really did not reach an ancient age, died before his 60th birthday already (from leukemia), so had he gotten a bit older then he perhaps could have delivered more quality films, especially because his biggest successes are from the last decade of his life, which makes sense also because of the political climate in Japan before that.
Now I think that not too many immediately scream here when asked if they know the name Mizoguchi (and that includes myself too), but looking at his body of work and how well it is received still today a lot of it, it can be safely said that he is Tier II when it comes to Japanese filmmakers and Tier I is really only Kurosawa of course.
And obviously it is a Japanese production as the director here is Kenji Mizoguchi and he is also among the writers who adapted the novel the film is based on for the screen. Of course, despite this age, it is a sound film already. "Saikaku ichidai onna" or "Saikaku: Life of a Woman" is an award-winning black-and-white movie from 1952, so this one will soon have its 70th anniversary.
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