He reminisces his past when he was about to commit suicide and saved by Osen, a young woman acting as a decoy for a gang of traffickers led by Kumazawa.

When Sōkichi and Osen, who sees her solely as an elder sister, run out of money, she turns to prostitution and theft to help him finish his exams.

Orizuru Osen was one in a series of adaptations of Izumi's stories directed by Mizoguchi,[4] a writer he admired.

[6] In his Critical Handbook of Japanese Film Directors, Alexander Jacoby wrote that Orizuru Osen "displayed in embryo [its] director's capacity for rich atmospheric detail and his abiding concern with the oppression of women".

[7] Orizuru Osen has repeatedly been screened with live benshi narration by Midori Sawato.