They have a grown-up son, Kiyoshi, who works at the post office as a mail clerk and is saving up to study at the university.

One day, Sumiko offers Kayo, a young actress from the same troupe, some money and asks her to seduce Kiyoshi.

Meanwhile, the troupe's old-fashioned kabuki-style performances fail to attract the town's residents; the other actors pursue their own romantic diversions at local businesses, including a brothel and a barber shop.

[1] Ozu first planned to remake A Story of Floating Weeds for Shochiku, and the title was intended to be A Ham Actor (大根役者 daikon yakusha, "radish actor"); the stars (most of whom were attached to Shochiku) were to include Eitarō Shindō and Chikage Awashima as the primary leads, Masami Taura and Ineko Arima as the youth leads, and Isuzu Yamada as the former mistress.

The actors were replaced mostly with Daiei contract players, and the title was changed in deference to Nakamura Ganjirō II, the respected kabuki theater star who played the lead.

In the scene shown, Kunisada (played by Sumiko) is taking his leave of his faithful companions, Gantetsu and Jōhachi, on Mt.

When Gantetsu delivers the line, "The wild geese are calling as they fly towards the southern skies," he points off-stage into the auditorium.

So when Sumiko, as Chuji, turns stage left to deliver the line "And the moon is descending behind the western mountains," she is actually facing east.

Despite Nakamura Ganjirō II's fame as a noted star of kabuki theater, he is shown applying full makeup but not actually filmed onstage, though he is heard off-screen as the audience watches him perform and players backstage lament the show's poor attendance.

Nakamura recalled that he and Machiko Kyo got sick with a cold after filming the confrontation scene between their characters in the rain.

Kazuo Miyagawa served as cinematographer for the film, replacing Ozu's favorite cameraman, Yuharu Atsuta.

In an interview, Ozu described the film as an experiment on how to bring life to an old fashioned story in a modern setting and noted that by working with Miyagawa, he realized that different colors required varying degrees of lighting.

[6] This new edition of Floating Weeds is based on a 4K digital master with an uncompressed Japanese LPCM 1.0 monaural soundtrack.

Subtitles for the Criterion edition of Floating Weeds take liberty with lines delivered by Kōji Mitsui early in the film: while wandering through the village in Kabuki costume promoting the troupe's appearance, he is asked his name by a prostitute he considers unattractive.

The site's critical consensus states: "Floating Weeds boasts the visual beauty and deep tenderness of director Yasujiro Ozu's most memorable films -- and it's one of the few the master shot in color.