Of the seven geisha who once worked for Otsuta, only Nanako and Someka are left; a third girl, Namie, has just run away, convinced that she has been tricked out of her share.

The situation tightens when Namie's uncle shows up, demanding the money which he thinks his niece is entitled to.

In the final scene, Rika, instructed not to tell anyone of Ohama's plans, watches the unknowing Otsuta giving music lessons to apprentices.

[3] For her book, Kōda had used her own experiences she had made while working as a maid in a geisha house in Tokyo's Yanagibashi district in the early 1950s.

[5] Flowing was screened at the Museum of Modern Art in 1985[6] and at the Harvard Film Archive in 2005[7] as part of their retrospectives on Mikio Naruse.