History of Post-War Japan as Told by a Bar Hostess

The links between the two halves of the title are generally left to work themselves out in terms of American influence, which we see both in the newsreels of political events and, on its most basic level, in the hostess' bar. They are sufficiently tenuous for our interest to rest mainly with the hostess herself. Fortunately she's an amazing lady, talkative and humorous, possessor of enormous charm. Shot in an appropriately rough-edged style, partly to distance itself from its own claim that film is a manipulative medium. Imamura's film ironically has an ending like something out of Hollywood fantasy. Our hostess, rumoured to be about fifty by then, leaves for the States with her 23-year-old Marine husband in tow and her sights set on US citizenship.