The penultimate film by Japanese master director Yasujiro Ozu examines the difficulties faced by the Kohayagawa family as they struggle to adapt their traditional values to a rapidly changing post-war Japan. As the family's generations-old sake making business begins to fail in the face of increasingly fierce competition, Manbei, the incorrigible elderly patriarch, rekindles an affair with an old flame, much to the disapproval of his daughter Fumiko. He is further distracted by his attempts to marry off his other two daughters: Akiko, the eldest and a widow with a small son, and Noriko, the youngest who is still single.