His own daughter Fusako, who left her husband and moved back into her parents' home with her children, blames Shingo for her arranged and failed marriage and for his preference of Kikuko over her.

Shingo accompanies Kikuko to a hospital visit, only to learn later that she aborted the child she expected from Shuichi.

A secretary from Shingo's company helps him to find Kinu, Shuichi's mistress and an independent businesswoman, who tells him of his son's abusive behaviour.

Kikuko finally decides to divorce her husband and, meeting Shingo in a park, tells her father-in-law that she wants to try to live a life on her own.

Naruse biographer Catherine Russell sees Sound of the Mountain as a woman's film, as it reduces the book's perspective of Shingo in favour of the female characters who, with the exception of the passive Kikuko, act outspoken and independently, "trying to make their way in a world in which men like Shuichi have been psychologically destroyed by the war".