In a Japanese post-war tenement building, a family of grifters from father to son get in all sorts of hustles in an attempt to profit from modern society’s advantages.

With a script by Kaneto Shindo (Onibaba), Kawashima returns to his satirical and misanthropic verve in this depicting of capitalist Japan still under American occupation. His protagonists, without morals, seeking profit everywhere, become puppets caught up in their own strings. By opting for unity of space, this appartement with incessant comings and goings, that we leave only to visit the staircase, Kawashima delivers a film direction masterclass worthy of Hitchcock's The Rope, where the setting, like a prison, becomes a metaphor for a deliquescent world.