This is one very confusing movie for what is really a simple story of a classic love triangle involving two Japanese girls and Japanese man. In the first act, where it depicts the friendship between the girls and the man's character, the movie relies on a lot of artsy editing and adds many side characters. This was very confusing due to a million title cards being shown (it's a silent movie) without identifying characters. Finally, the movie gets interesting when the dilemma and struggles of the relationship between the two once-best friends and the man are laid out. Still nothing truly breakthrough here either. It's here that I should add that I've had great expectation over this movie. Its director, Hiroshi Shimizu, was a great director -- a quote from Kenji Mizoguchi proclaims that he and Yasujiro Ozu worked hard for their movies while Shimizu made masterpieces with greatest of ease. I will have to try another Shimizu later on.
