Hachi no su no kodomotachi

A repatriated soldier sees a gang of orphaned children at a railroad station. He shares his chocolate and bread with them, and takes most of them along with him as he goes in search of work and the only home he has ever known, a reform school where they taught him hard work, honesty, and respect for others. As they trudge along, he teaches them these things by example.

Hiroshi Shimizu directed 145 features and more than 20 short subjects in his career, from 1924 through 1959. Between 1942 and 1947, he made only three, and one of those was a part of an anthology film. He spent his time working with refugee children, like the ones portrayed in this film. He returned to the screen with this one, writing, producing and directing it, because he had something he had to say: hard work, honesty and compassion.

It is, in fact, a sequel to INTROSPECTION TOWER. That's where the soldier is heading. Although there are some standard melodramatic movie bits in this one, there are also some beautiful cinematic moments: a small boy standing at the shore crying "Mother!"; adults and children raking salt; people meeting in a devastated graveyard in Hiroshima; tall, bark-stripped trees falling in the forest; a small boy, another small boy on his back, climbing slowly and erratically up a mountain. Even more amazing, he did it with a cast of people who had never acted in a movie before.

Few of the actors ever worked again in the movies. Shimizu makes them all memorable.