In Ginza, the classy shopping district of Tokyo, there are a lot of people. Some are regular inhabitants. Some go there to shop or meet lovers. And some go there to steal, sometimes on the spur of the moment. Things being how they are, when little Sachiko Atami is found wandering around without her mother, she is delivered to sandwich-board man Ryô Ikebe. He always takes care of lost children until they can be reunited with their parents, with the police the last resort. But her mother, who is looking for her, is at sixes and sevens, as Miss Atami scampers off to wander around the regulars of the district.
Director Hiroshi Shimizu was an expert in movies about lost children, even though the lost children he was usually concerned about were in far more dire straits than in the calm village that Ginza is shown as in this movie. Even so, there is an undercurrent of alienation here, not just on the part of lost children, but of adults who see the Ginza only as a happy place to get a coffee, see a show, or purchase expensive goods.
Director Hiroshi Shimizu was an expert in movies about lost children, even though the lost children he was usually concerned about were in far more dire straits than in the calm village that Ginza is shown as in this movie. Even so, there is an undercurrent of alienation here, not just on the part of lost children, but of adults who see the Ginza only as a happy place to get a coffee, see a show, or purchase expensive goods.