Rintaro Mayuzumi Movies

Most famous for being the original director of Rampo before producer Kazuyoshi Okuyama usurped him, former NHK director Rintaro Mayuzumi spins this sentimental wartime drama bearing vague similarity to the box-office smash Poppoya. Set during the war, the film opens with a hard-up single mother abandoning her infant daughter in a remote Hokkaido train station. The child, named Moe (Rumi Hiiragi), is raised by the gruff but tenderhearted stationmaster Jiro (Isao Hashizume), along with the manager of a local tavern (Hisako Manda) and her good-for-nothing husband (Saburo Ishikura). She also befriends a rotund, bull-headed lad named Takejiro (Itto Yamada). Yet in spite of all of this, she still longs to meet her biological mother. Moe's mother (Hitomi Kuroki) has had similar longings too. Two years previous, she arranged a meeting with Jiro, but then she backed out at the last minute. Now she wants to try to meet her long-lost daughter again, but this time Jiro is wary -- not only because he's afraid she might flake out again, but also that he might lose his beloved adopted daughter. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide